Chief Executive Dave Lewis forced Tesco's 15 most senior executives to go shopping in in the stores to put them in the customers' shoes to understand their point of view.
Tesco's top executives are forced to shop from Tesco and cook their own food while staff are encouraged to spend the night in stores-all in an effort "to put them back in touch with their customers."
After Tesco's accounting blunder last September which involved overstating profits that caused its shares to shoot down, new Chief Executive Dave Lewis made his first move to turnaround the struggling company-by pushing the retail giant's executives to shop-and spend the night in one of the stores.
Lewis reportedly wanted to clear the retail giant's name and prevent customers from shifting to discounters Aldi and Lidi.
Lewis encouraged thousands of staff at the retail company's headquarters in Chestnut, Hertforshire to spend one night in the stores to prep and experience the rush themselves during the holidays.
"I'm trying to get the business to make time for and think about - if they weren't doing already - the things that matter from a customer point of view ... service, availability, quality," said the Tesco CEO.
"I think if you're in our business and you're not spending all of your time looking at the quality and the presentation and the taste of the food and the products you serve - what are you doing?" Lewis said in an interview with Daily Mail
"I took my executive team away for a day and a night. It's been a very frenetic time and I wanted to get to know the people and talk about where the business was and where it was heading-So I took them off to a tiny self-catering place in Norfolk" Lewis added.
"Let's just say it was a damn sight cheaper than most hotels would cost you," Lewis continued.
Included in the executive team were United Kingdom chief Robin Terell, Tesco bank chief benny Higgins, Trevor Masters who operates Tesco's £20 billion Asian division, group property director Steve Rigby, group corporate affairs director Rebecca Shelley and group business planning director David Hobbs.
The executives also had to shop from Tesco and the competition, as well as cook their own meals to gain hands-on experience on what ordinary shoppers experience day-to-day in their stores.
"The meals had to come from Tesco and the competition so we as an exec group had a hands-on experience of going shopping, buying, preparing, eating and we sat and we looked through it all," Lewis said.
