As a former retail employee, I was taught that “the customer is always right.” Despite the mind eye rolling and thoughts of how wrong some customers were, as a retail employee, you respect each customer that you come into contact with.
Customers in every retailer are the most important aspect to every business. The more customers a company has, the more profits they make. Without customers, a retailer could easily lose business and eventually go bankrupt. Most companies, such as WalMart, strive to bring in more customers with their low prices being their number one concern. WalMart is able to meet or exceed other retailers in providing everyday low prices for their customers due to their relationships with suppliers. WalMart demands their suppliers lower their costs each year. If they do not comply, WalMart will not use them nor carry their brand (Ferrell, Fraedrich, & Ferrell, 2013). Effects on the associate, as WalMart does not use the term employee, also can affect the customer’s interest at WalMart. If an employee is not happy at work, it often reflects onto the customers. To keep prices low for their customers, WalMart does not provide health insurance to more than 60 percent of their employees, offer higher wages, and requires little to no skills for certain positions
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Picking up groceries for the week, shower needs because your daughter decided to empty all your shampoo down the drain, and that birthday present for your nephew can be done in one trip rather than countless trips to grocery stores, drug stores, and the dreaded toy store with screaming children not getting their way. Low prices can be difficult for a company, but for the customer, it is a win-win situation. The suppliers that use WalMart also win because they know how many people shop at WalMart. Employee rights are also being addressed and trying to be improved. The strategic focus overall is improving and showing to be effective and
This is due to the fact that customers are forced to buy in bulk. A strategy taken by Costco wholesales to increase store turnover and profitability. Additionally, to increase its market influence, Costco has added services such as automobile, gas, optometry, pharmacy, and printing at very low prices in the past decade. “What’s better than to rotate my car’s tires, fill my prescription, gas my car, all the while I am finishing my shopping”, a dad might say while shopping at Costco. Finally, unlike any other mega-retailer, Costco has included its own employees as primary target market. By respecting the employees and paying them high wages, Costco has created a positive feedback loop for itself. Highly paid employees will have high loyalty toward the company, and they will shop at Costco for their needs. At the same time, due to their high loyalty, staff will provide high quality customer service for common customers. This generates positive word-of-mouth advertisement leading to an increase in membership sig-ups translating into higher profits for the company (Ingram, 2013).
Wal-Mart is one of the largest retailers and employers in the world. It currently has over 2 million employees (www.statisticbrain.com). This is mainly due to the tenets Sam Walton introduced to the company. Associates of Wal-Mart focus on respect for the customer as well as respect for the employee. There are three values that associates live by which retains employees and grows Wal-Mart’s business:
The employees are very committed to their employer due to earning high wages, benefits, and internal promotions. A happy employee in turn, makes a happy customer. Employees interact with the customers, as the company foster’s an environment of collaboration (DiSalvo, 2015). Employees are not just checking you out, or bagging your groceries; they are engaged in their work, and want the customer to be as excited about the products as them. Customers like to form relationships with the businesses they visit, for example banks, restaurants and retail stores. At Trader Joe’s, the employee turnover for full-time employees is less than 10%, therefore customers get to know the employees and build relationships which makes shopping enjoyable and you don’t feel like just another shopper (Ton, 2012). Trader Joe’s certainly has a competitive advantage in customer service and as long as they continue to invest in their employees, they will have a sustainable advantage over their competitors.
If internal customers (employees) are not satisfied with the company, they have no motivation to make external customers happy. Costco values this fact and makes sure their employees are well-compensated. The best case study of customer-friendly and employee- friendly practices is Costco. Costco customers find it easier to make buying decisions due to fewer choices and the fact that Costco's items are competitively priced. A study was done in 2000 by two professors from Columbia University and Stanford University found that people are more likely to commit to purchases when fewer choices were available instead of more. Costco proves that satisfying both external customers and internal customers promote a successful
Walmart is the go-to shopping center for most Americans, but are they fully aware of the negative impact Walmart has caused America? Many people shop where they can find everything at once and is in a decent distance from their home, but most shoppers don’t realize what they are really purchasing or the truth about the stores they buy from. If more Americans knew what they were really getting out of their shopping trips at Walmart they probably wouldn’t come back. Walmart has a privative effect on America more than people realize. The people they hurt in the process of trying to “Save money” and “Live Better” are the backbone of the business, the products they sell might as well be used, and their crime rate escalates more and more, and
When I first started working at the Warren Theatre I heard the same thing at every staff meeting. “The customer is always right.” Most people question if the phrase is true or not and I believe it has its rights and wrongs. Everything has its pros and cons and for this phrase to make a point the customers must always be right; however, I am here to tell you that if someone tells you this statement they are wrong.
In this paper we will look at outrageous customer services and three principals of customer service. We will also cover intergrading principals of customer service personally and professionally. Often in this paper we will use Costco as a model to explore the concepts of customer services. The goal of this paper is to get a clear understanding of what outrageous customer service is and what it looks like in action through the Costco experience.
Walmart 's "Save money, live better" idea resonate with every customer, everywhere it has a presence. Walmart 's purpose can be defined as to help clients afford something extra by offering the best possible prices on the products.
In some situation the customer can be wrong but the employee should handle the problem the right way. In my life experience at work I have had customers who was in the wrong but they wouldn’t admit it so I had to solve the problem so that the customer would be happy even though they were wrong I put the customer first. Everything that I have learned in my life was taught to me as I grew up and that made me the person that I am today so I think things that are worth knowing are taught from the people around you and your life experience. Being sure of anything or everything can be troubling something, always knowing and being sure of what’s going to happen can’t help a person on their
The success of Wal-Mart is due in large part to its ability to consistently produce high quality products at a low cost. This is very critical to the future success of Wal-Mart because it provides consistency to customers who are price sensitive. By committing themselves to "Everyday low prices," Wal-Mart assures customers that the products sold within their stores are competitive in reference to its retail competition. This low price strategy also provides Wal-Mart with a
The things a person could see if they simply watched Walmart’s customers for even a short amount of time are mind boggling. During a typical, mundane Monday afternoon, I browsed through Walmart 's many aisles not in search of a particular product, but simply observing and studying different aspects of the supermarket. The customer’s behavior, product placement, and employee interactions all stood out to me as interesting. I also took notice of how different consumers interacted with different staff members and vice-versa. As I observed the customers, teachings from my Sociology class immediately started taking form in the real world. While analyzing the different social interactions the people of Walmart were having, I begin to apply different theories, such as the functionalist theory, why these things must happen, the conflict theory, why they are unequal, and symbolic interaction, how they happen. Surprisingly, while watching the average day in Walmart, I found it was hard to ignore my ethnocentric viewpoint, thinking your culture is better than another, to cloud my perspective of why certain interactions were occurring.
This brings out a positive appearance within the store. This type of treatment should be present in all departments throughout the store. The most important support comes from the checkout counter who will leave the customer with a lasting impression of that store. The cashier's behavior could be the determining factor if that customer will return to that store. A policy should be in place which states that all cashiers final comments spoken to the customer should be "Have a nice day. Thanks for shopping at Wal-Mart". Quality customer service is what will make a store flourish in the retail business, or it could hinder the business by losing customers to another retail store. Without customer service, there will be no customers (Lindner, 2005).
We ask that they have good attitudes towards customers because we want customers to come back to our store whenever they something and we want them to feel comfortable coming to our store, and we want our customers to tell their friends and family about us. They must team players so they can work together and bring out the best in each other so we make as much profit as possible. Customer service is one of our biggest priorities mainly because that’s what we are known for.
Sam Walton’s extraordinary business strategies drove Walmart to its success and their key focus was customer satisfaction. As part of their customer centric initiatives Walmart had set up a unique pricing strategy with their “Every Day Low Prices” EDLP (Karen Robson, 2013). They would offer customers their daily needs at the lowest possible price to drive Walmart’s growth in the United States (Karen Robson, 2013) . Their pricing strategy was different than other major retailers in the U.S at the time; this provided an advantage towards rapid success and expansion (Karen Robson, 2013).
Walmart serves nearly 260 million customers weekly across 27 different countries, both in stores and through its websites (“Fortune”, 2015). Walmart relies heavily on its proper and effective marketing strategies; Walmart would not be able to achieve the level of success without these strategies. Low prices, easy access for its customers, and social media campaigns are a few of the vital tactics Walmart has used in its marketing plan. “Save Money. Live Better” is Walmart’s mission in delivering customers products at the lowest prices. This low price strategy plays a marketing role that caters to customers who seek the lowest prices and with grocery stores that provide great deals (Brown, 2017). Walmart’s low cost business model is protected by its powerful supply and distribution chains throughout the world. Customers can expect the same cost efficient style in every Walmart store worldwide.