TETERBORO, N.J., Oct. 27 (UPI) -- Executives at the world's biggest retailer announced plans Wednesday to improve service and experience at their stores this fall in an effort to make shopping during the holiday season less stressful.
Wal-Mart plans to add "holiday helpers" to speed check-out times for customers, improve the service at pick-up desks and increase the number of in-store demonstrations to make it easier to get holiday shopping done, and done well.
Plans for the 2016 holiday season, specifically the holiday helper concept, came directly from customer feedback, said U.S. chief operation officer Judith McKenna during a presentation at the discount giant's Teterboro, New Jersey, location.
"That was actually the number one thing that customers told us," McKenna said. "Which is, 'how can you help us get through the checkouts faster?'"
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The holiday helpers will direct customers to shorter check-out lines, open up new registers during particularly busy times and will even run back to an aisle if a customer in line has forgotten something. The number of holiday helpers will vary by store, day of the week and time of day, McKenna said.
As part of improving online ordering, Wal-Mart repainted pick-up service areas orange and is dedicating a manager at every store to the department to keep them moving smoothly.
In terms of improving shopping experience and customer discovery of new products, Wal-Mart also plans to add visits from Santa Claus, put selfie booths in stores and double the number of product demonstrations in stores to 150,000.
"We want to make it as easy as possible for [customers] no matter how they want to shop," McKenna said.
