Your employees make decisions everyday that will impact the performance of your company. Unfortunately, they don’t always know the consequences of their decisions.
When you help your employees see the impact of their decisions, it will guide them to make the right choice.
The last time I was at Walmart, I noticed this box sitting on the counter behind the service desk:
The box says “Each box cost the company an average of $0.75”. On the opposite wall hung the current Walmart stock price.
Clearly this area of the store has a lot of employee traffic and these signs and wording are for their benefit.
Why would Walmart put the price on the box? Because each employee at the company is responsible for keeping costs low.
A plain brown box with no price indicator appears to be “free” in the eyes of employees. Using a box is effortless and without consequence.
By adding the “$0.75” price tag to every box, employees are forced to think about the need to use the box in the first place. They may be driven to find alternatives or to more efficiently use what they already have.
This subtle, yet powerful, messaging helps reinforce the company’s policies and culture of saving money.
You or your managers aren’t always around to help your customer make good decisions. Reminders in the environment will prompt your employees to remember what they should be doing.
Saving $0.75 might not sound like a lot but it adds up when saved across thousands of locations around the world.
The reminders you give to employees about the impact of their decisions will have far reaching benefit, not just to the bottom line and profitability, but to improving the customer experience and how employees treat your customers.
Maybe because I am not a fan of Walmart, that I am not a fan of this practice. To me, the sign tells everyone, including customers (who don’t care) that the cost to Walmart is more important than what the cost is to the customer in time, travel, satisfaction, etc. especially if it wasn’t the customer’s choice to return it. Accountability is important to all of our companies as is reducing spending, but I think that there are other, more subtle ways to remind associates. To me, that sign just points to what is most important to Walmart- $$$$
@Tim – you’re right: money is the most important thing to Walmart. Odds are this box is typically never seen by customers. And if they do, as you noted, they don’t care. There are definitely more subtle ways to remind associates. The key is that you actually remind them somehow to encourage the behavior you want.
I have a different take on this than Tim.
WM is one of the few companies that competes exclusively on price. Price drives EVERYTHING for them, only because that’s what WM’s customers demand from WM in order to remain loyal. The only reason $$$$ are most important to WM is that’s what’s most important to WM’s customers – that’s WM’s entire value proposition – it’s that simple.
Few other companies can truly compete on price over the long haul like WM, and no one does it better. So … by definition WM’s internal culture must be driven by the exact same thing or the entire paradigm breaks down. If I’m a WM customer, I WANT to see that on the box, because it reminds me, even if subconsciously, that WM is doing everything it can to keep my checkout cost as low as possible.
@Scott – thanks for sharing your take on this. I like how you point out that the box reinforces WM’s value proposition of always low prices. I think that customers will either agree with you and say “hey, that’s great they are keeping costs down” or they will, like Tim mentioned, not care at all. I doubt the typical WM customer would be upset by seeing the box. It definitely, as you mentioned, reinforces the low cost culture and company that WM represents. Other businesses would be wise to show off their culture and values for all to see (customers and employees).