Case Study: Smart & Final achieves 11% sales growth and 11x employee recognition with Achievers

Smart & Final Uses Achievers to Influence Sales with Recognition Campaigns

Smart & Final, a western U.S. warehouse retailer with about 211 stores and more than 10,000 employees, needed to overhaul a widely disliked, impersonal service-awards program and boost low recognition and engagement among a workforce that is offline 95% of the time. The company sought a mobile-friendly platform supporting peer-to-peer, manager-to-peer and peer-to-manager recognition with minimal administrative overhead.

Using Achievers’ Employee Success Platform™ and a “Spotlight” program, Smart & Final ran a month-long “March Madness” recognition competition that encouraged cross‑functional, mobile recognition. The initiative drove recognition activity to 11× the normal monthly average (more than 43,000 moments in March), lifted sales in every district versus the prior four-week period with average sales growth of 11%, and kept 96.8% of recognitions point-free, making the campaign virtually cost-free.

Smart & Final