The Power of Listening to your customers

   

 

Good to see how an organisation uses research to listen to its customers and take action. In this case the result is retail bravery, led by Wal-Mart in bringing back the time honoured greeting “Merry Christmas” to customers in all its stores. The greeting “Happy Holidays” may have appeased the multi-cultural PC world we live in but it just does not ring true. Wal-Mart is honest enough to say that it “learned” from protests including a boycott of its stores by some religious groups last year.

I love the quote from Wal-Mart’s spokesperson: “We're not afraid to use the term 'Merry Christmas.' We'll use it early, and we'll use it often."

Wal-Mart stores will play Christmas carols throughout the holiday period and about 60 percent more merchandise will be labelled as "Christmas" rather than "holiday" items.