In years past, employees at Staples have faced a challenging work environment. According to The New York Times, Staples maintained an internal reporting system nicknamed “Market Basket” that carefully tracked all equipment and protection plan add-ons that each sales staff member sold. Staples expected that each salesperson would upsell each transaction by $200 with additional merchandise and warranty contracts. Staples salespeople were trained to push until they got at least three objections.

This was a classic hard-sell technique. Sales staff who did not meet their goals were coached. If that didn’t work, the underperforming employees faced disciplinary action that could lead to more night and weekend shifts, reduced work hours, or even termination.

Store managers also faced intense scrutiny. They received a clear message that to avoid bringing down a store’s Market Basket averages, salespeople should “walk the customer” if they could not be successfully upsold. The customer was informed that the merchandise was not in stock and then would leave the store empty-handed. Salespeople had another option:

They could escort customers to an in-store kiosk to place an online order. Online orders were not subject to Staples’s key performance indicators (KPI) and were not reported to a store’s Market Basket. (For more reading, see David Haggler,

“Selling It with Extras, or Not at All,” www.nytimes.

com/2012/09/09/your-money/sales-incentives-at-staples-draw complaints-

the-haggler.html.)

1.A company’s sales force creates and communicates customer value by personally engaging customers and building customer relationships. With its Market Basket approach, was Staples focusing on building customer value and relationships? Explain.

2.Find and read Staples’s code of ethics online. Is the sales policy outlined above consistent with Staples’s ethics policies? Is “walking the customer” a violation of the ethics code? Provide specific examples.