The news: Target plans to evaluate store workers on customer engagement as it looks to elevate the guest experience and sustain its sales momentum, per Bloomberg.

The retailer will measure how employees greet, help, and engage with shoppers to ensure customer service is consistent across stores. These scores—alongside other factors such as execution, reliability, and teamwork—will be used to build a more structured set of standards for measuring stores’ performances.

The strategy: The new guidelines formalize one of Target’s primary goals under new CEO Michael Fiddelke, which is to “[elevate] the guest experience by making every story visit and digital interaction easier, more inspiring, and more welcoming,” Fiddelke said in a company message.

Target is pulling every lever possible to achieve this aim, including increasing spending on payroll and employee training, revamping displays, refreshing assortments, and introducing boutique concepts for core categories like baby and beauty.

Those efforts are delivering early returns.

• Target COO Lisa Roath said that “many” of its store-experience metrics hit three-year highs in Q1 2026, with improvements in both Net Promoter Score (NPS) and overall satisfaction with wait times, product availability, store cleanliness, and interactions with its employees.
• Its investments in payroll and workload rebalancing are enabling store workers to spend more time with guests, leading to improvements in guest experience and satisfaction metrics.

Implications for retailers: Target’s move to standardize customer engagement metrics point to the importance of the in-store experience in cultivating loyalty and driving sales.

• Staff empathy and courtesy rank above value for money in shaping memorable customer experiences among US adults, according to a Sogolytics survey, which could work in Target’s favor as it struggles to match the value proposition offered by Walmart and Amazon.
• A better store environment could help attract Gen Z shoppers, who are more inclined to shop in-person than older generations.