10-4 Misses the Target for Human-centric Customer Service

Big-picture conversations about AI in the customer contact world have made space this year to accommodate the concept of “the human touch,” a catch-all term that has come to represent the empathy, understanding, and thoughtfulness that only a veritable human being can provide. Where AI hype has died down, proponents of the technology and discerning leaders alike have embraced the idea that AI must be implemented in a way that perseveres the human touch.

But what does “the human touch” look like in practice? Target has taken a literal approach, rolling out a new initiative this week that requires employees to greet customers in their vicinity on the basis of how physically proximate they are. The program, called “10-4” because it mandates that employees smile and act warmly towards any customer within ten feet of them, and verbally greet customers within four feet of them, has been poorly received by employees and the LinkedIn discourse engine. 

On one hand, the premise is not a new one. Retail stores have long required employees to greet and exchange pleasantries with customers; Walmart famously had dedicated greeters posted at their doors for decades. Target staff are very visible within the store, so expecting them to contribute to customers’ shopping experience in a friendly, positive way is neither unexpected nor unreasonable. Still, when we dig deeper into what the program signals about its approach to human-centric customer service, it becomes abundantly clear how it was always doomed to miss the mark.

It fails to provide value to customers

Programs that rely on smiles, waves, and pleasantries don’t offer much real value from the customer’s perspective. Of course, shopping in an environment where you’re being treated kindly is received well by many, but given the popularity of customer experiences that can be undertaken without any employee intervention, it would be a mistake to assume that more human interaction always correlates with a better experience. 

Target has fallen victim to the assumption that “human touch” is accomplished simply by having a human in the loop. Unfortunately, this initiative starts and ends at greetings. Empowering agents to offer a more consultative experience for customers by offering help and making recommendations would personalize experiences would more significantly enhance experiences, but this would be a more involved undertaking. Therein lies the conundrum many brands are encountering with regards to the human touch: what they really want is for employees to foster meaningfully human interactions with customers, but they don’t prioritize the coaching, upskilling, and training required to support their employees, and so settle for empty gestures like smiles and waves. 

It is measurable, but not in a productive way

The measurable components to this initiative, and thus the metrics that will likely be used to assess employee performance, are the directives for when employees are ten or four feet from a customer. This leaves little room for subtlety–what if a customer is on the phone? What if a customer is pushing a stroller with a crying baby? 

When directives leave no room for employees to make judgement calls, it disempowers them. If employees are led to believe they will be disciplined for failing to greet a customer within four feet of them, what is stopping them from avoiding being caught in the vicinity of customers? Programs that fail to capture the nuances of both customer and employee behavior are especially difficult to implement and offer a poor representation of agent behavior. For example, the most engaged employees may find themselves being disciplined for lack of adherence to the 10-4 rule because they’re cognizant that not all customers would benefit from an employee interaction at that moment. 

“Forced joy” often comes off as disingenuous

Earlier this year, Starbucks came under fire for a similar program. The coffee giant reinstated the requirement for baristas to write positive messages on their coffee cups, and while the intent was rooted in fostering better customer interactions, it fell flat. Customers came online to complain about the juxtaposition between the long lines and the valuable time spent writing on cups, while noting the employees’ demeanor was anything but cheerful as they struggled to keep up with the order volume. 

Journalist Beth Kowitt dubbed this phenomenon “forced joy,” a corporate trend that captures the essence of many brands’ lackluster approach to human-centric experiences. These surface-level initiatives may sound good on paper, but in practice they are entirely reliant on the goodwill of the employees to succeed, and this is something that can’t be controlled. Rather than expecting employees to act as executors of specific acts of joy, employees are far more likely to create human-centric experiences when their own humanity is recognized. 

Interested in learning more about the powerful connection between the employee experience and CX? Read the Workforce Management issue of the CCW Digital Magazine here!

Image by Joshua Brown on Pexels.