Target will grade employees on friendliness after introducing 10-4 policy
Target are introducing a new grading system to track how 'friendly' employees are with customers in store, branding the move as one of their 'top strategic priorities'.
When it comes to the experience we have in grocery stores, there's a whole range of psychological tricks going on without consumers even knowing.
From the music played, to where certain items are placed, everything is designed to make the shopper stay in the store for as long as possible, and, of course, spend more money.
And Target's new CEO Michael Fiddelke, who took over in February, has one mission in mind - to improve sales.
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Fiddelke has introduced a whole host of new strategies, including the 10-4 policy, which shoppers might have picked up on if they've visited recently.
The policy states that if a guest is within ten feet of a Target team member, the staffer should make wave, greet or make eye contact with them.
And when the shopper is within four feet, the employee should ask about the customer’s day or ask them if they need help with anything.
But there's another new strategy he's putting place to improve the customer experience, announcing earlier this year that employees will be graded on their friendliness.
A Target spokesperson told the Independent: "Target is focused on getting back to growth, and elevating the guest experience is one of our top strategic priorities.
"We’ll continue investing in training and tools to deliver the experience our guests expect and that makes Target a delightful retailer."
They further noted that it will 'roll out the assessment broadly across the chain', which includes more than 2,000 stores across the US.
The retailer's guest experience framework assesses staff across four core pillars: interaction, execution, teamwork, and reliability.
But one user on Reddit suggested the strategy isn't the best way to encourage staff to be 'friendlier'.
They wrote: "I just don’t get it. I really don’t. Being 'friendlier' is not going to do much. Put more people in the stores. Allocate stores more hours.
"Relieve some of the workload for the individuals. That’s how you get friendlier staff. Let them actually enjoy their jobs so they will be genuinely kind to the guests."
Target are yet to outline how exactly the subjective metric will be tracked, as one user pointed out: "The issue with this for me is that there's no metric to track this. For productivity you can pull numbers for specific TMs, but for guest interaction the only thing you can go off of is surveys, which guests rarely leave if they had a positive experience."
Mia Williams