Dive Brief:
- Target is planning to evaluate its employees on how they engage with customers, a Target spokesperson confirmed for CX Dive. Bloomberg News first reported on the development Wednesday.
- Target rolled out a guest experience training in the spring to more than 300,000 associates and leaders focused on four performance factors: interaction, execution, teamwork and reliability.
- The retailer has been piloting an assessment tied to those factors, but does not yet have a date to share for when the evaluation will be rolled out across stores. Customer engagement would fall under its interaction pillar, as would engagement with other team members.
Dive Insight:
The plan to evaluate customer service interactions is part of broader effort under way at Target, led by CEO Michael Fiddelke, to focus on the guest experience as a strategic priority. Team members are essential in their role serving customers every day.
“Target is focused on getting back to growth, and elevating the guest experience is one of our top strategic priorities,” the spokesperson told CX Dive in a statement.
“Our store team members play an important role in consistently achieving that and earlier this year, more than 300,000 team members completed training designed to make every Target run easy, inspiring and friendly,” the spokesperson said. “We’ll continue investing in training and tools to deliver the experience our guests expect and that makes Target a delightful retailer.”
Last fall, the retailer rolled out a 10-4 program, first reported by Bloomberg, which requests associates greet or make eye contact with customers when they are within 10 feet and look to assist customers when they are within 4 feet.
That policy is separate from what team members will be assessed on, according to Target.
Target isn’t the only company encouraging friendliness with customers, but evaluating employees on customer engagement only works if retailers are setting staff up for success.
“This isn’t an unreasonable move by Target, especially as it gives them a framework to monitor and track customer service in more detail,” Neil Saunders, managing director at GlobalData Retail, told CX Dive in an email.
As part of a wider package, such a policy can be impactful, “but a silver bullet it is not,” Saunders said.
“First, Target must be careful not to alienate staff with such grading — the scores need to be transparent and fair,” Saunders said. “Second, on its own this is not a big fix — other things need to happen to improve service standards. Sometimes, it’s operational processes set by corporate that get in the way. Staff are willing to give great service but are not always enabled to do so.”
Last fall, Fiddelke said the retailer would help associates do their jobs.
“A great guest experience means a lot of things, but it starts with a warm, friendly and helpful team in stores,” Fiddelke said on a November earnings call. “We’re making changes to give our team members more time to focus on what matters most, spending time helping our guests through enhanced digital tools.”
Target has been putting money where its mouth is.
In addition to providing guest experience training, the retailer is adding more payroll hours, EVP and COO Lisa Roath said on an earnings call last week. It appears to be paying off, too, with customer satisfaction metrics higher in stores that received increased support.
