Whaaaaa? The Wall Street Journal says J.C. Penney and Home Depot have been investing in better customer service training, because apparently some egghead thinks it might increase sales. Penney started it back over the holiday shopping season, by giving cash bonuses to employees who improved their customer service scores. Home Depot should be rolling out some new improved customer interaction this month, where cashiers will ask if you found everything you needed and will call up the right department on your behalf if you didn’t.

Macy’s, the third retailer in the article, is not going this route. Instead, it’s sticking with good old fashioned CEO bonus restructuring–now instead of 20% of the CEO’s bonus being tied to sales, it will be 33%, and he will get to add one random exclusion to the fine print on Macy’s coupons. (That’s why there are so many exclusions–every CEO gets to add one during his tenure.)

“Retailers Try On New Sales Tactic” [Wall Street Journal via RetailWire]

(jclarson)

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