National Clothing Retailer: Customer Engagement and Employee Engagement

Economic and market conditions in the late 1990s and early 2000s caused declining business for this national retailer. Sales and customer traffic slowed, while new challengers emerged. To reverse these trends, corporate leaders focused on engaging employees and improving customer relationships. The client hired Gallup to create an integrated performance management system. The goal: to provide each store manager with the tools to optimise employee engagement and customer engagement.

Gallup consultants measured employee and customer engagement several times and provided the client with in-depth analysis, executive consulting, manager training, and manager interventions. Gallup's Business Impact Analysis, which assesses the linkage between engagement levels and business outcomes, revealed that store-level employee and customer engagement significantly influenced each store's financial performance. Gallup's business analysis showed that:

  • for an average store with 100,000+ square feet of space, "optimised" stores, or those with top-level performance on key customer and employee engagement measures, outperformed non-optimised stores by:
  • $8.2 million in sales
  • $3.4 million in margin
  • $2.5 million in operating profit
  • When compared to their non-optimised counterparts, as a group, this set of optimised stores realised a significant net benefit to the company of approximately:
  • $114.8 million in sales
  • $47.6 million in margin
  • $34.7 million in operating profit

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