Retailer adds greeters at stores to help boost customer engagement and sales.
Taking a page from retail giant Walmart’s page, JCPenney has added greeter positions at its store entrances from noon to 2:00pm, the so-called “power hours,” according to The New York Post. The employees, who are existing full-time workers, are rotated for two hours of shift to the front door positions.
Employees are a bit unsure of the motivations behind the move, with one telling the Post, “We don’t know why it’s from 12 to 2, but we were told it would increase sales.”
Walmart recently re-introduced its store greeter positions to offer customers more at the door, as Innovative Retail Technologies reported. The initiative is an effort to bot boost customer service and improve loss prevention efforts.
According to the Post, JCPenney is also concentrating on boosting the number of customers who open store credit-card accounts.
The initiative also has had some negative effects, according to store employees, reflected in longer lines at the cash registers while some employees are manning the doors. One employee said, “even the crew that unloads merchandise from trucks had to be on the floor greeting.”
The trial, launched earlier this summer, is in effect in the stores across the Northeast region of the country, though not every store has greeters.
JCPenney has been working diligently to reinvent itself and to leverage the demise of one of its chief competitors, Sears. As Innovative Retail Technologies reported, one way that JCPenney is capitalizing is by positioning itself to move in and become King of the Malls as other major retailers flee. While its competitors are now retrenching, JCPenney has actually seen an amazing turnaround over the past four years, and the retailer is determined to keep that momentum going.
While its competitors struggle, JCPenney has been focused on initiatives to boost sales. The retailer’s turnaround seems to be working: while many other retailers reported lackluster figures for the 2015 Holiday Shopping Season, JCPenney saw comparable store sales up 3.9 percent in November and December. Earlier this summer, the company announced that it was redesigning its IT capabilities to help bring them up to speed. The revamp efforts include out-sourcing some positions while also adding other domestic jobs to make IT more efficient and cost-effective. And this spring, the retailer launched a new clothing line called Boutique+ designed exclusively for plus-sized women in an effort to tap this growing apparel market.
While this latest initiative seems a bit murky in terms of how it can continue to help the retailer boost sales and improve its place in the market, what is clear is that JCPenney has its eye on the prize.
