The Secret Script Your Sales Clerk Follows

Jeanine Gleaves, a cashier for a big chain bookstore in Manhattan, is tired of the elaborate scripts she’s required to recite during every transaction. It’s tedious to “keep blurting out those little phrases,” she says, and customers just look away. But recently, the aspiring illustrator tried something new: singing her lines. Now shoppers look up. They smile. Some even sing back, “which is pretty awesome,” says Gleaves. Depending on the reaction, she sings the official welcome, the rewards-card offer, even the sales total. She has yet to try the routine on her employer’s mystery shoppers. “But I kind of want to get one,” she says, “just to see what they say.”

Can you blame Gleaves for adding a personal touch? Store workers these days get more micromanaging than Noah got from God, and it goes well beyond sales patter—retailers like Starbucks (SBUX) and Staples (SPLS) now apply efficiency methods first developed in factories to their front line staff. The rules can dictate how fast employees work, what they say, even how they move. The goal is greater productivity. While the practice is hardly new, it has definitely picked up since the crash: Kronos, an industry leader in workforce management software, says some 600 retailers, including Best Buy (BBY) and Kohl’s (KSS), now use its programs—almost twice the number in 2007.

Deciding the best way to fold a T-shirt, it turns out, is a problem best left to experts. At consulting firm Accenture (ACN), engineers wielding video cameras and stopwatches have determined how to perform more than 2,000 tasks the most efficient way possible. To ring up a can of beans, for example, one should grasp the container with the left hand, pass it over the scanner and transfer it to the right hand before bagging it. The wizards also calculate how long each job should take: .33 seconds to weigh a carrot, 4.6 to hang a sweater. Armed with these standards and software to predict store traffic, retailers can calculate exactly how many person-hours to allocate to each department, down to 15-minute increments. Even the scripts are engineered. Researchers say, for example, that the greeting “What brings you into the store today?” results in higher sales than the traditional “How may I help you?"

Naturally, employees are monitored to discourage slacking. Cashiers are rated on scans per minute, while stock workers are timed for shelving efficiency. One former Banana Republic (GPS) clerk told me that at her store, associates were given a sales goal for each shift; even the dressing-room attendant was expected to sell credit cards. Loafers, she says, got fewer hours and crappy shifts. (The company says sales goals are just one consideration when scheduling employees.)

Some companies say these strategies actually help improve customer service. Payless ShoeSource [PSS], for one, says its “workforce optimization” campaign frees clerks to spend more time with shoppers. But often, say critics, stores capitalize on productivity gains to shrink staff. According to Retail Systems Research, two-thirds of retailers cut store labor in the past six months alone. Ironically, those money-saving measures can erode profits; one study by Wharton School operations professor Marshall Fisher found that an understaffed chain could earn $5.60 profit for every additional dollar spent on clerks.

The more subtle problem with all this emphasis on efficiency is the concern that it’s turning clerks into a fleet of smiling robots. Starbucks recently launched a series of “Better Way” routines based on Toyota (TM) production methods, which spokesperson Valerie O’Neil says should improve the customer experience. But some employees posting on the Starbucks Gossip blog say the push erodes the service that made their employer special. The silver lining? One barista writes that since the efficiency measures arrived, “The customer count has dropped so low, we have plenty of time to do everything.”