The Shopping Trolley Stare Down!

I am a huge fan of Target - like the rest of the world - and rarely have a bad word to say about them. However, on Saturday with only 12 days to go before Christmas, I witnessed something quite surprising. On going into the store with my family we found a crowd of people all standing around waiting for a shopping trolley - there weren't any left inside the store. At the same time there were a few of the Target employees standing around watching us! I could almost read their minds - 'why don't those lazy people go outside and get a trolley?' 'It isn't my job to bring in the shopping trolleys so there isn't anything I can do about this'. It probably wasn't their job to do it but how happy would all of those potentially loyal customers have been if a couple of employees had rushed outside to help bring in some trolleys. We would have been impressed that they were willing to step outside the parameters of their normal jobs to help us out on a day where most of us were already stressed out and tired in the Pre-Christmas rush.

What this experience convinced me of is that the type of service that demonstrates a store's or an individual's willingness to go above and beyond is often the service that makes the deepest and longest impression on the customer.

Perhaps retailers and other service oriented companies should start challenging their employees to do one thing that is outside their normal job description on a daily basis!