Faces of Walmart Return To Former Glory

Greeters are a big part of company culture at Wal-Mart Stores Inc., and their role just got bigger.

After a successful pilot program, Walmart will bring back door greeters in its more than 5,000 U.S. stores.

Before, greeters had been further inside stores, but they’ll return to the front doors by mid-summer, wrote Mark Ibbotson, executive vice president for central operations for Walmart U.S., in a blog post Wednesday.  

In some stores, a customer host, which is a new position, will greet customers, check receipts, help with returns and keep entrances safe and clean, Ibbotson wrote.

Last year, the company launched a pilot program that moved greeters in many stores back to the front door, and in other stores, put customer hosts at the front doors.

Customers liked that they could easily find someone who could help them, Ibbotson wrote. The hosts stood out because they wear yellow vests.

Walmart will look at data on safety, security and shrink risks to determine which style of greeter the company will employ at the front door.

“Where our data tells us the risk is higher, we’ll add the new customer host,” Ibbotson wrote. “We expect to fill about 9,000 of these new hourly positions that are specially trained to both welcome customers as soon as they walk in and also help deter would-be shoplifters.”

Existing greeters will have the opportunity to apply for the customer host positions at stores that will have the hosts.