The person ringing up your purchase might be a millionaire.
The Wall Street Journal recently featured a millionaire employee that monitors the self-checkout lanes.
He’s not a CEO retiree that got bored.
He’s a long-term Costco employee benefiting from generous pay, benefits, and access to the employer investment plan.
But it might be Costco that’s getting the bargain.
This individual possesses the soft skills to make customers feel welcomed. He remembers their names. Cue the hugs.
He’s not a self-checkout monitor. He’s a customer ambassador.
Costco is borrowing a page from Henry Ford.
When Ford introduced the five-dollar day in 1914 it wasn’t born out of generosity. He was trying to reduce turnover and training. At the time, the move was controversial. But were those employees semi-skilled line workers or quality assurance engineers?
Instead of focusing on hiring and training, Ford could move on to production and innovation.
Costco is playing the same game. Turnover in retail is high. But not at Costco. It’s hard to learn the customer’s names unless you’ve been there for a while.
Chick-fil-A is another company executing in this lane.
Horst Schulze, one of the founders of Ritz-Carlton, was in the room when Chick-fil-A founder S. Truett Cathy insisted on adopting the Ritz-Carlton practice of responding to gratitude with, “my pleasure.”
Beats, “have a good one.”
Those kinds of manners are expected in an opulent hotel. It’s extraordinary in fast food.
Or the checkout lane at a warehouse club.
And it’s unforgettable. Let that sink in. Unforgettable.
In the crowded, noisy world we live in today, that’s gold.
Winners redefine the job. They go beyond asking, “how do we get employees to do the job?” to inquiring, “what could this role accomplish?”
That’s how a checkout lane monitor becomes a customer ambassador. That’s how a cashier becomes the face of a brand. An apartment building maintenance technician becomes a protector of customer quality of life.
Competitive advantage is the result. And the challenge for the rest of us. It’s not enough to hire better people.
Winners redefine the role those people will occupy. The result is higher customer satisfaction, higher profits, lower turnover and happy employees.
Even ordinary jobs can have hidden strategic value. Most companies never look for it. The winners always do.