The term food and consumables refer to food as well as other items that are consumable instead of being durable. This means that food and consumables are goods that are required to be replenished time and again as they deplete very soon. Printing papers, envelopes, mineral water bottles, salt, batteries, ballpoints, stapler pins, lays chips, Sprite bottles, et cetera, would be examples of food and consumables as more of them are needed all the time since they are purchased daily by customers at Walmart. Here we will see about What Is Walmart Food And Consumables Team Associate?
There are many different kinds of responsibilities of Walmart food and consumables team associates and are mentioned in the job description outlined by Walmart when hiring. They include identifying the needs of customers, helping them with their returns and refunds, selling them only quality items, keeping the shelves neat and clean, removing any expired items from shelves, et cetera.
Taking Care of the Cleanliness in this Section
Most of the consumables are food items so the first thing that is to be taken note of by the team associate is that all the shelves must be neat, clean, and sanitized. This is because it is the food we are talking about. Customers would abhor buying food items from Walmart if they see the shelves infested with rats and their excretions or if they are dirty looking and repulsive to the eye. This is a very important element to keep in mind. Customers want to see food item shelves neat and clean so they don’t perceive hygiene-related issues from the place they pick something to eat. This is a very important consideration that the team associate must take care of and keep the shelves appealing to look at.
High-Quality Food Products
Another thing that the team associate at Walmart must take note of is the quality of food products that are being stocked on shelves. This is because no one among the customers would like to purchase things as sensitive as food items that are low quality, even though they come cheap. This is important to emphasize that customers do not compromise on food because it is way too important to ignore. Customers won’t like to purchase food items if they are stale or have a bad taste, have a bad smell, or if they are unfit in any other way. So if a customer has had a bad experience with a brand, he would remember that brand and not want to purchase from it again. A team associate must therefore refrain from stocking products that are not popular with customers such as if there have been repeating complaints against them. Also, it is their job to take rock-solid action on the complaints that have been received from customers.
Returns-Exchanges-Refunds
There should not be any kind of restrictions on customers about refunds and exchanges and they must all be processed seamlessly. This is so that the customers don’t have the feeling of being cheated or hoodwinked by the leading retail store in the United States. For any item which is defective beyond a reasonable doubt, the refunds must be processed in the shortest possible time and the team associate must ensure that there are no delays into this. Ideally, the refunds should be processed instantly over the counter, and the customers have given their money back.
Identifying Customer Needs
The team associate must also identify the customer needs that are currently not being fulfilled at the store. For instance, there are other items that the customers would want to shop for, all under the same roof but they may be unable to because those items are not available for sale. Feedback from customers, therefore, is very important and a team associate must make full use of it. A creative idea would be to put a sign on the checkout counters asking customers if they were unable to find an item in the store. If so, they could WhatsApp at the given number and let the team know. This way, when the item is ordered and put on shelves, the same customer could get a message back on WhatsApp. It would therefore be an effective way to identify and satiate customer needs at Walmart stores.
Check Expiry
An extremely important thing to keep a close eye on is the expiry date of items. There is no way that a customer would be willing to purchase an expired item. No way! However, this happens sometimes when there is so much stock and some of it is not sold. This must be done away with and ensured that not a single item that is expired is still sitting on the shelves for sale. A solution would be to mention the expiry date of the relevant barcode on the POS software. That way, whenever any item would cross its expiry date, an alert would show on the software demanding action be taken. This would be to remove the stock from the shelves. Also, such items would not be allowed to be sold by the system owing to this error. This can help Walmart avoid lawsuits from customers who can go to court if they mistakenly sold expired items by Walmart.
Conclusion
The job of a Walmart food and consumables team associate is that he should be able to take care of his section in every manner. This includes being able to keep it clean, addressing complaints and refund requests, and selling new items in line with customer feedback. Also, he must ensure that all expired items are off-shelf and that only fresh and fit items are sold to customers.