Measuring HR and Training Standards
for macy’s Team Members
Company Overview
macy’s is one of the largest department store retailers in the United States. As of April 30, 2022, there were 511 stores, the company had 130,000 employees and earned an annual revenue of approximately $25 billion.
What was the Challenge they were looking to resolve?
Each year macy’s spend millions of dollars attracting people to their stores and felt it was essential that the value proposition, experience, and quality customers had been promised in these promotions were upheld.
After numerous strategic acquisitions, macy’s had an urgent need to establish and re-align what were considered the fundamental building blocks of a strong customer experience. At the heart of this? Their employees.
What process/solution was deployed to help them achieve their goals?
Service Evaluation Concepts were commissioned to collaborate with macy's to help better understand if associates were compliant with the three fundamentals (Greet, Sell, Satisfy) of employee-customer engagement. Our services were firstly used to assess hiring standards, ensuring they were at a level sufficient to vet less qualified candidates and to bring high quality talent into the team, in line with both internal and governmental policy. Secondly, SEC deployed macy's Certified Brand Agents as undercover CEOs to measure the fundamentals of service, where once team members had been successfully onboarded, we analyzed whether newly hired individuals were engaging with customers in-line with their training and the expected brand experience.
Insights & Results
Armed with the expected experience, Certified Brand Agents were initially deployed to take part in the interview process and assess if candidates were being treated with the respect and consistency expected of macy’s. Empowered to gather insights that would enable macy’s Leaders to measure the performance of Hiring and HR teams, our brand agents provided crucial feedback which changed the way elements of certain training programs were delivered.
In the second phase of our deployment, Service Evaluation Concepts deployed an army of mystery shoppers into stores all across the United States. Unlike unsuspecting regular customers, who could only react to how they were made to feel, these Certified Brand Agents understood macy’s training and specifically the designed customer experience and thus were able to measure these non-negotiable and tangible attributes. The result? Managers within stores are now being made accountable for the behaviour and corresponding financial outcomes of their team members.