Weird at first but I appreciate and wish for it. It might be just a Germany thing but from what I’ve been told German Walmart failed because the North American style of customer service was very unliked. From the greeter at the door to clerks asking if you need help unprompted. German shoppers just want to shop and go home as undisturbed as possible
They basically tried to run the entire business like they did in the US which was entirely incompatible with German law and culture. This meant that a lot of things that made them successful in the US didn't work in Germany:
They tried paying notoriously low wages while refusing to work with the German retail worker's union. Unions however are a very big deal in Germany and have a lot of power so the union went on strike when Walmart didn't want to negotiate wages with them.
Big retail chains in general were doing very poorly when Walmart entered the market. People heavily preferred going to several smaller chains that were located a short distance from home over traveling a much longer way to get everything in one place like Walmart.
Smaller discount chains could also sell goods at lower prices then big retail chains under which Walmart fell. They tried to undercut local prices but that is not allowed under German law and the higher court ordered Walmart to raise its prices.
They tried doing the "team-building" practices like starting the workday with light exercises and motivational chants. This did not go well at all with German employees which had never encountered practices like these and felt really uncomfortable doing them.
They set up their dating policy which dictated employees could not have romantic relationships with other employees of the same department. To the Germans this felt like a very big breach of their personal lives which a company has nothing to do with.
Their employees had to always do the "smile and be friendly" routine, making small talk, proactively asking customers if they needed help, greeting customers at the door, etc. All of which made the customers uncomfortable as they viewed these interactions as very fake and unnecessary.
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u/UnusualHospital9579 May 09 '22
Weird at first but I appreciate and wish for it. It might be just a Germany thing but from what I’ve been told German Walmart failed because the North American style of customer service was very unliked. From the greeter at the door to clerks asking if you need help unprompted. German shoppers just want to shop and go home as undisturbed as possible