The Sundown Rule
Exceeding Customer Expectations
The "Ten-Foot Attitude"
Every Day Low Prices
The Wal-Mart Cheer
¡¡The Sundown Rule
One Sunday morning, Jeff, a pharmacist at a Wal-Mart store in Harrison, Ark., received a call from his store. A store associate informed him that one of his pharmacy customers, a diabetic, had accidentally dropped her insulin down her garbage disposal. Knowing that a diabetic without insulin could be in grave danger, Jeff immediately rushed to the store, opened the pharmacy and filled the customer's insulin prescription. This is just one of many ways your local Wal-Mart store might honor what is known by our associates as the Sundown Rule.
It's a rule we take seriously at Wal-Mart. In this busy place, where our jobs depend on one another, it's our standard to get things done today - before the sun goes down. Whether it's a request from a store across the country or a call from down the hall, every request gets same-day service. These are our working principles.
The Sundown Rule was our founder, Sam Walton's twist on that old adage "why put off until tomorrow what you can do today." It is still an important part of our Wal-Mart culture and is one reason our associates are so well-known for their customer service. The observation of the Sundown Rule means we strive to answer requests by sundown on the day we receive them. It supports Mr. Sam's three basic beliefs: respect for the individual, customer service and striving for excellence. At Wal-Mart, our associates understand that our customers live in a busy world. The Sundown Rule is just one way we try to demonstrate to our customers that we care.
¡¡ Exceeding Customer Expectations
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At Wal-Mart, we receive letters daily from customers praising individual associates for giving exceptional service. Sometimes they write to express their appreciation for services as simple as a smile, an associate remembering their name or someone carrying out their purchases for them. Other times they write of incidents that seem almost heroic - for instance, Sheila who risked her own safety when she jumped in front of a car to prevent a little boy from being struck, Phylis who administered CPR to a customer who had suffered a heart attack in her store, Joyce who threw a plate on the floor to assure a young mother that a set of dishes was truly unbreakable and Annette who gave up the Power Ranger she had on layaway for her own son so that a customer's son could have his birthday wish.
Years ago, Sam Walton challenged all Wal-Mart associates to practice what he called "aggressive hospitality." He said "Let's be the most friendly - offer a smile of welcome and assistance to all who do us a favor by entering our stores. Give better service - over and beyond what our customers expect. Why not? You wonderful, caring associates can do it and do it better than any other retailing company in the world . . . exceed your customers' expectations. If you do, they'll come back over and over again."
As Wal-Mart associates we know it is not good enough to simply be grateful to our customers for shopping our stores - we want to demonstrate our gratitude in every way we can! We believe that doing so is what keeps our customers coming back to Wal-Mart again and again.
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The "Ten-Foot Attitude"
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One of Wal-Mart's secrets to customer service is our "10-foot attitude," handed down to us by Wal-Mart Founder, Sam Walton. During his many store visits, he encouraged associates to take a pledge with him: "... I want you to promise that whenever you come within 10 feet of a customer, you will look him in the eye, greet him and ask him if you can help him."
This pledge is what we now call our "10-foot attitude," and it was something Sam had practiced since childhood. He was always ambitious and competitive, and by the time he reached college at the University of Missouri in Columbia, Sam decided he wanted to be president of the university student body.
In his words, "I learned early on that one of the secrets to campus leadership was the simplest thing of all: speak to people coming down the sidewalk before they speak to you ... I would always look ahead and speak to the person coming toward me.
"If I knew them, I would call them by name, but even if I didn't I would still speak to them. Before long, I probably knew more students than anybody in the university, and they recognized me and considered me their friend. I ran for every office that came along."
Not only was Sam elected to just about all of those offices, but he also carried that philosophy into the world of retail, where you can see it practiced every day by Wal-Mart associates throughout the world.
(Sam was president of the senior men's honor society, QEBH, an officer in his fraternity, president of the senior class and captain and president of Scabbard and Blade, the elite military organization of ROTC.)
Every Day Low Prices
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After serving in the Army in World War II, Sam Walton knew he wanted to get into the business of retail. He started out by running a store in the Ben Franklin franchise where he learned about buying, pricing and passing good deals on to customers.
He credits a manufacturer's agent from New York, Harry Weiner, with his first real lesson about pricing:
"Harry was selling ladies' panties for $2 a dozen. We'd been buying similar panties from Ben Franklin for $2.50 a dozen and selling them at three pair for $1. Well, at Harry's price of $2, we could put them out at four for $1 and make a great promotion for our store.
"Here's the simple lesson we learned ... say I bought an item for 80 cents. I found that by pricing it at $1.00, I could sell three times more of it than by pricing it at $1.20. I might make only half the profit per item, but because I was selling three times as many, the overall profit was much greater. Simple enough. But this is really the essence of discounting: by cutting your price, you can boost your sales to a point where you earn far more at the cheaper retail than you would have by selling the item at the higher price. In retailer language, you can lower your markup but earn more because of the increased volume."
Sam's adherence to this pricing philosophy was unshakable, as one of Wal-Mart's first store managers recalls:
"Sam wouldn't let us hedge on a price at all. Say the list price was $1.98, but we had paid only 50 cents. Initially, I would say, 'Well, it's originally $1.98, so why don't we sell it for $1.25?' And, he'd say, 'No. We paid 50 cents for it. Mark it up 30 percent, and that's it. No matter what you pay for it, if we get a great deal, pass it on to the customer.' And of course that's what we did."
And that's what we continue to do - work diligently to find great deals to pass on to our customers. Thanks to the legacy of Sam Walton, Wal-Mart is a store you can count on every day to bring you value for your dollar. And that's why at Wal-Mart, you never have to wait for a sale to get your money's worth!
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The Wal-Mart Cheer
Give me a W!
Give me an A!
Give me an L!
Give me a Squiggly!
Give me an M!
Give me an A!
Give me an R!
Give me a T!
What's that spell?
Wal-Mart!
Who's number one?
The Customer!
Don't be alarmed if you hear these enthusiastic shouts from our associates as you're shopping at your favorite Wal-Mart store. All the noise is our Wal-Mart cheer. Some people may think it's corny, but we're proud of it. It's the way we show pride in our company - in fact, we hope you'll join right in. Over the years, our company has grown to include stores, associates and customers in many parts of the world, so now our cheer can be heard in many different languages.
