Friendliness in the retail business: How to help employees to become friendlier

Abstract

Generally, companies in the service sector are facing growing challenges to maintain a continuous competitive advantage and to keep up with the changing customer needs and expectations. The current competition and cost pressure on companies, as well as the need for new strategies lead the focus back to the interaction with the client. Also, the interchangeability of the products and services led to the need for a positive customer experience to increase the retention rate.

In the given case, traditional supermarket chains in Switzerland are suffering from a customer churn to hard-discounters. This, due to their inability to compete with the aggressive price and cost optimization strategies of hard-discounters. Structurally, traditional supermarkets face higher personnel costs as they put greater value into well-groomed stores and specialized personnel, which in the end results in higher sales prices. To overcome this competitive disadvantage, a supermarket chain plans to use the presence of more personnel as a competitive advantage, as the higher presence of personnel leads to more interactions with the customer. Therefore, it is seen as a chance to invest in these interactions. Specifically, through an increased friendliness of the employees towards the customer.