Back in 2012, I wrote that Sam Walton had to be turning over in his grave over Walmart's decision to remove greeters from its store lobbies. Mr. Sam can now safely turn back over. Walmart has announced that greeters will move to the front lobby in roughly two-thirds of its stores after a pilot found their presence made shoppers feel welcomed.
The company is also adding the new position of "customer hosts" who fulfill the traditional role of a greeter with the added responsibility in many locations of deterring thieves from walking merchandise out of the store.
A post on the official Walmart blog said a test the company ran last year moved employees from the action alley area near the checkout back to the front door. Customers were happy to be able to easily find someone (associates wear yellow vests) to help them with questions, assist with returns and keep entrances clean.
Greeters, the blog post acknowledged, are "a big part" of Walmart's company and its culture and that's why the company intends to keep them in a majority of its locations.
Customer hosts will be deployed in stores where the chain's data points to higher risks for safety issues, security and shrink. Walmart said it expects to fill about 9,000 new hourly host positions with workers "specially trained to both welcome customers as soon as they walk in and also help deter would-be shoplifters."
In stores that need customer hosts instead of greeters, Walmart will give affected associates the option of applying for the new (apparently higher paying) positions. During the pilot phase, Walmart found 80 percent of associates affected were able to find new jobs within the company, with an unspecified percent being promoted. Those who were not able to make the transition from greeter to host or some other position were offered severance.
In an online discussion last week, many of the industry insiders of the RetailWire BrainTrust were happy to see the greeters back.
“The appearance of Walmart greeters and customer hosts was an aspect of the Walmart customer experience that made shopping at that retailer different from many other large retailers,” said Matt Talbot, CEO and co-founder of GoSpotCheck. “Along with reducing theft and shrink, I think knowledgeable hosts and greeters will be extremely useful to customers who need additional information about the store and/or products.”
“It depends on the Walmart location,” said Kenneth Leung, retail and customer experience expert. “I think this will work to improve customer experience and community relations in family-oriented communities. I always thought shrink reduction via the greeters were more due to psychological than physical security.”
Some, however, saw the move as less customer-focused than purported by Walmart.
“What is interesting is that there had been news stories over the years about how effective greeters were in lowering theft,” said Steve Montgomery, president of B2B Solutions. “Surprise, surprise, Walmart moved its greeters away from the front door and added self-checkout, and shrink went up. Now not only is Walmart bringing back greeters, but bringing in hosts whose job it is to deter theft. The impact for the stores that have hosts assigned will be far greater on shrink than customer experience.”
“Nice try to put a positive spin on preventing theft,” said Mel Kleiman, president of Humetrics. “This still does not address what I see as the biggest challenge facing Walmart when it comes to customer service — getting customers through the checkout line faster.”
