How Does Walmart Affect The Customer

Walmart 's "Save money, live better" idea resonate with every customer, everywhere it has a presence. Walmart 's purpose can be defined as to help clients afford something extra by offering the best possible prices on the products.

Sam Walton’s extraordinary business strategies drove Walmart to its success and their key focus was customer satisfaction. As part of their customer centric initiatives Walmart had set up a unique pricing strategy with their “Every Day Low Prices” EDLP (Karen Robson, 2013). They would offer customers their daily needs at the lowest possible price to drive Walmart’s growth in the United States (Karen Robson, 2013) . Their pricing strategy was different than other major retailers in the U.S at the time; this provided an advantage towards rapid success and expansion (Karen Robson, 2013).

In this paper we will look at outrageous customer services and three principals of customer service. We will also cover intergrading principals of customer service personally and professionally. Often in this paper we will use Costco as a model to explore the concepts of customer services. The goal of this paper is to get a clear understanding of what outrageous customer service is and what it looks like in action through the Costco experience.

The things a person could see if they simply watched Walmart’s customers for even a short amount of time are mind boggling. During a typical, mundane Monday afternoon, I browsed through Walmart 's many aisles not in search of a particular product, but simply observing and studying different aspects of the supermarket. The customer’s behavior, product placement, and employee interactions all stood out to me as interesting. I also took notice of how different consumers interacted with different staff members and vice-versa. As I observed the customers, teachings from my Sociology class immediately started taking form in the real world. While analyzing the different social interactions the people of Walmart were having, I begin to apply different theories, such as the functionalist theory, why these things must happen, the conflict theory, why they are unequal, and symbolic interaction, how they happen. Surprisingly, while watching the average day in Walmart, I found it was hard to ignore my ethnocentric viewpoint, thinking your culture is better than another, to cloud my perspective of why certain interactions were occurring.

The employees are very committed to their employer due to earning high wages, benefits, and internal promotions. A happy employee in turn, makes a happy customer. Employees interact with the customers, as the company foster’s an environment of collaboration (DiSalvo, 2015). Employees are not just checking you out, or bagging your groceries; they are engaged in their work, and want the customer to be as excited about the products as them. Customers like to form relationships with the businesses they visit, for example banks, restaurants and retail stores. At Trader Joe’s, the employee turnover for full-time employees is less than 10%, therefore customers get to know the employees and build relationships which makes shopping enjoyable and you don’t feel like just another shopper (Ton, 2012). Trader Joe’s certainly has a competitive advantage in customer service and as long as they continue to invest in their employees, they will have a sustainable advantage over their competitors.

Walmart is the go-to shopping center for most Americans, but are they fully aware of the negative impact Walmart has caused America? Many people shop where they can find everything at once and is in a decent distance from their home, but most shoppers don’t realize what they are really purchasing or the truth about the stores they buy from. If more Americans knew what they were really getting out of their shopping trips at Walmart they probably wouldn’t come back. Walmart has a privative effect on America more than people realize. The people they hurt in the process of trying to “Save money” and “Live Better” are the backbone of the business, the products they sell might as well be used, and their crime rate escalates more and more, and

If internal customers (employees) are not satisfied with the company, they have no motivation to make external customers happy. Costco values this fact and makes sure their employees are well-compensated. The best case study of customer-friendly and employee- friendly practices is Costco. Costco customers find it easier to make buying decisions due to fewer choices and the fact that Costco's items are competitively priced. A study was done in 2000 by two professors from Columbia University and Stanford University found that people are more likely to commit to purchases when fewer choices were available instead of more. Costco proves that satisfying both external customers and internal customers promote a successful

In some situation the customer can be wrong but the employee should handle the problem the right way. In my life experience at work I have had customers who was in the wrong but they wouldn’t admit it so I had to solve the problem so that the customer would be happy even though they were wrong I put the customer first. Everything that I have learned in my life was taught to me as I grew up and that made me the person that I am today so I think things that are worth knowing are taught from the people around you and your life experience. Being sure of anything or everything can be troubling something, always knowing and being sure of what’s going to happen can’t help a person on their

Wal-Mart is one of the largest retailers and employers in the world. It currently has over 2 million employees (www.statisticbrain.com). This is mainly due to the tenets Sam Walton introduced to the company. Associates of Wal-Mart focus on respect for the customer as well as respect for the employee. There are three values that associates live by which retains employees and grows Wal-Mart’s business:

customers unbeatable prices that their competitors find difficult to challenge. But in providing those “great deals” it deducts from other sources. Walmart directly imports from Asia and in turn Asia produces cheaply made items and sells to Walmart for a low cost. Thus,

When I first started working at the Warren Theatre I heard the same thing at every staff meeting. “The customer is always right.” Most people question if the phrase is true or not and I believe it has its rights and wrongs. Everything has its pros and cons and for this phrase to make a point the customers must always be right; however, I am here to tell you that if someone tells you this statement they are wrong.

In addition to these effects on small businesses around the country, Wal-Mart’s promises of low prices are also impacting its own workforce. These low prices often come at the expense of fair wages and sufficient healthcare plans, leaving Wal-Mart employees to work in poor conditions for little reward. Wal-Mart’s treatment of its employees has long been in question. “The sad truth is that people earning Wal-Mart level wages tend to favor fashions available at the Salvation Army” (Ehrenreich, 2007). In less sarcastic terms, Wal-Mart employees cannot even afford to buy the clothes they sell and have to end up shopping at places like Goodwill and the Salvation Army to clothe themselves and their family. “You have to keep wages completely down;

The success of Wal-Mart is due in large part to its ability to consistently produce high quality products at a low cost. This is very critical to the future success of Wal-Mart because it provides consistency to customers who are price sensitive. By committing themselves to "Everyday low prices," Wal-Mart assures customers that the products sold within their stores are competitive in reference to its retail competition. This low price strategy also provides Wal-Mart with a

During research on this final project, the author found an example of Wal-Mart's communication in backing customer service. A Wal-Mart customer returned a completely thawed turkey including all the fixings for a dinner because her relatives could not make it due to car trouble (Now That's Customer Support, 2006). Wal-Mart returned the customer's money which was $19 plus some change and the customer returned the complete turkey dinner which included two boxes of stuffing, some cranberries, stuff to make pumpkin pies, green beans and a package of rolls (Now That's Customer Support, 2006).

WalMart's mission statement "we save people money so they can live better" (Wal-Mart Investor Relations, 2013) is a strong catalyst that many rely on internally to drive ever-greater business process improvements. The continual commitment to improve internal processes is also what drives the company to fulfill its vision as well, which is to be the leading discount retailer in the markets it chooses to compete in (WalMart Investor Relations, 2013). The vision and mission of WalMart In order ot