Retail Case Study: Shopper's Stop- Employee Focus

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Shoppers’ Stop was started by C.L. Raheja in 1991 when organized retailing was unheard of in India. The retailer’s main focus was on the customer and to the person who attended the customer- the employee.
At Shoppers’ Stop, right from the CEO to the front-end sales person, everyone was called Customer Care Associate This helped in boosting the self-esteem of the employees. It had specialized induction programs to groom the recruits, especially the first timers. The program included classroom training on the basics of retail, store design, store space planning, visual merchandising, selling and cashiering. This was followed by two weeks ‘mentoring’ program. Under this program they were attached to a senior in the workplace. Finally, to give the new recruits the sense of belonging, their parents were invited to breakfast to get a feel of environment at Shoppers’ Stop.
In 2002, Shoppers’ Stop realised that the customer care associates were not performing up to the mark and were not able to satisfy the customer, which was a cause of concern.  This made Shoppers’ Stop put in place a ‘Customer Satisfaction Index’ (CSI) and an ‘Employee Satisfaction Index’ (ESI), designed by CSMM Walker, an American Company. It was observed that ESI and CSI had a direct relation. Interestingly, ESI showed that the employee satisfaction was largely dependent on their superiors.
Shoppers’ Stop immediately launched a ‘skill upgrading’ program aimed at supervisor improvement in terms of product knowledge and customer handling. The four months training program showed immediate results as the average sales grew by 101%.
The promotions were actually based on mentoring rather than the recommendations of superior.
Despite of all these measures Shoppers’ Stop faced a high attrition rate. This was mainly among the young people taking up more lucrative offers from other organisations. Shoppers’ Stop tried its best to retain talented associates and it became the first company in retailing to offer employee stock options. In addition they also linked 15% – 35% of bonuses to employee performance.
All these employee development initiatives resulted in Shoppers’ Stop nurturing the best work force in the retail industry.

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