Two 'Gold Standard' Retail Personnel . . . And the Difference It Makes to A Customer

Does anyone share the experience of being served by some outstanding young example of a retail staffer-in-training (or, at least, someone obviously, by age, in the very beginning stages of their career in that industry) and think:

"This person should be the one conducting the training, not the one wearing the trainee badge."

I've had that very visceral reaction at least twice in recent weeks.

The first - and forgive me, Reace, because you're probably not still in trainer wheels - was at a Countdown (now Woolworths) store.

Supermarkets are the sort of place where you are hit in the face with the huge spectrum of difference in service standards and attitudes of personnel as you walk around the aisles. That is, if like me, you're always at-the-ready to ask a close-by staff member where to find a particular item, rather than spend several minutes or longer hunting for it yourself.

I was after a bottle of Thursday Island lavender essential oil. A product that, for some reason best known to whoever maps out Countdown's aisle and shelf planning, is always found in a completely different aisle than where it was last found.

The Right End of the Customer Service Attitudinal Spectrum

At hand was Reace. What follows is a much-shortened version of the efforts this staff member went to, to help me find an elusive product (and actually, a couple of others, too).

He's at the other end of the service attitudinal spectrum from the average staffer who would simply say, "Aisle 10" and, if you're lucky, thrust a pointer in the appropriate direction. Reace is the sort of example of customer service par excellence that walks you right to the product (or where it should be) - and then he goes hunting for it, if it's not there.

As he did with the lavender oil. Which was absolutely nowhere to be found - in that aisle or in any other.

Now, even most of the better supermarket staff would have considered their duty done at that point. But not Reace. No, for him it was just the beginning of assisting the customer. He went to the Service Desk and asked a colleague to confirm if the product was out of stock, or maybe somewhere completely different than before.

And the answer (after a lengthy and tenacious enquiry by Reace) was: Countdown had decided not to stock the product any longer.

So, surely, that was the end of his obligation to the customer . . . But no. Not according to the extraordinarily high customer service standards to which this young bloke holds himself. His next move was to proactively confer with his colleague at the Service Desk as to the most likely options for finding the product in my locale - which involved the two of them in an online search and some practical and actionable information to assist me in continuing the search for said product.

All done with the most impeccable manners. You know, addressing a customer as "Madam", and the whole nine yards, in terms of all the signs of good breeding.

You're a winner, Reace.

When An Employee Who 'Goes the Extra Mile' Fosters A Loyal Customer Base

The female counterpart to the above example, would have to be a young woman by the name of Yvette (and her colleague, Jaydee) at a Repco outlet I visited this past Saturday.

The previous day, I'd phoned and described the specifics of a need I had related to preventing my little dog from flying between the gap between the seats in my vehicle, should I ever have to brake heavily. The bloke I spoke to wasn't particularly resourceful and the conversation was pretty unproductive.

So I asked a contact I had at Mitre 10 in Palmerston North . . . who directed me straight back to the local Repco that I'd already rung without result. But my helpful contact didn't just direct me back there on a whim . . . he provided the link to a Repco product that not only was exactly what I needed and identical to the imaginary product I had described to the Repco guy (who "couldn't think of anything"), it was a product that had the required function right there in the name: "Vehicle Pet Barrier".

Even more remarkably, when I returned to that same local Repco, there was the very product right there, in stock, on the shelf! And it had been right there, at hand, when I had the conversation with the Repco guy who worked in the store.

Now . . . enter Jaydee who readily found and checked the suitability of the product, and then a most resourceful Yvette who (seeing clearly that I was no handywoman), popped all the components out of the packaging, right there (almost on closing time by the way, but it was no issue for her) and began expertly assembling them (a tricky exercise that she made look incredibly simple, albeit it wasn't anything of the sort).

Then the "Trainee" badge-wearing Yvette carried the unit out to my vehicle and proceeded to provide me with some particularly useful advice for whomever I would then take it to for final installation.

When I commented on her outstanding level of service, her response was not to absorb the praise for herself, but rather, she immediately embarked on a glowing commentary on how much she loved her job.

A Wise Head on Young Shoulders

What she said next, though, was something I sincerely wish was the way in which every frontline retail worker everywhere, saw the first and foremost function of customer service:

"I don't see it as selling a product to a customer," said Yvette. "I see it as trying to find a solution to a problem, and the best solution I can come up with for them."

Talk about a wise old head on young shoulders. Just like Reace at Countdown, Yvette deserves to go a long way. And savvy is the manager or business owner that recognises the value each of them represents to any customer-facing enterprise.

< Older Post

Newer Post >

AI Usage in Marketing: 'Disclosure Responsible, Ethical & Expected'

by Jordan Kelly • 21 April 2025

AI & Robotics Expert Provides Commentary on Skinny's New 'Brand Ambassador'