Asda has invested £4 million to hire temporary personnel for the Christmas period whose job it is to act as ‘Go-Getters for Forgetters’, that is, to fetch items shoppers may have forgotten as they wait in checkout lines, yorkshirepost.co.uk reports.
The project, which involves 8,000 supplementary staff, bears a semblance to that of Tesco’s ‘Here to Help’ operation. While Tesco’s system applies to 700 of its bigger UK stores, Asda’s is present in all 601 of its outlets across Britain.
The decision to deploy the additional staff followed research conducted on Asda’s behalf, which revealed nine in ten shoppers experience stress as a byproduct of forgetting products in the Christmas period.
Hayley Tatum, Asda director of people and stores, said, “Christmas is an enjoyable time of year, but it can also be one of the most testing. It’s our job to make it easy, hassle-free and fun, and our colleagues are top of the Christmas tree when it comes to service with personality.
“We introduced our ‘Go-Getters for Forgetters’ concept in a handful of stores five years ago to get anything customers had forgotten without keeping others waiting at the tills – this Christmas, we’ve invested an additional £4m into customer service for the busiest two weeks of the year meaning customers have more help than ever before.”
© 2015 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Peter Donnelly. To subscribe to ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine, click here.
