The other day I walked by a supermarket employee who was hanging out near the front entrance of the store smoking a cigarette.

I noticed him because it always confounds me when employers permit their employees to smoke someplace where non-smoking customers have to pass through their second-hand smoke in order to spend their money.

But that’s a topic from an earlier post…

This particular post centers on the employee’s admonishment of a customer who failed to return his shopping cart to a designated cart collection area.

After a customer positioned the front wheels of his cart on a median in the parking lot, the employee called out sarcastically, “Excuse me. That’s not where the cart goes!”

The customer either didn’t hear the comment or chose to ignore it.

Customers are not obligated to return shopping carts. It’s nice when they do but it’s not their responsibility any more than it’s a rental car customer’s responsibility to clean out the car’s interior before returning it.

At some point, employees have to assume responsibility for their job roles. That means gathering shopping carts, cleaning a rental car’s interior, or whatever their job descriptions entail.

Do you see the irony here? The employee who’s chastising the customer for failing to return the cart to a designated collection area is himself employed to gather shopping carts from the parking lot and return them to the store. That’s one of his job duties. It’s what he’s paid to do. The customer’s only obligation is to pay for his groceries.

I suppose if every customer returned his or her cart to a designated cart collection area then that would save this employee time and effort, perhaps allowing for more smoke breaks in front of the store—but then who would he heckle?

Earlier this month, my brother-in-law ordered a glow-in-the-dark football from Baden Sports as a Christmas gift for one of my boys.

When the package arrived this week, my wife opened it to find a glow-in-the-dark soccer ball rather than the football that was ordered. She compared the product received to the packing slip and confirmed the mistake.

Right away, she sent an email to Baden Sports’ online customer service department informing them of the discrepancy. Ten minutes later she received an email from Tam Nguyen, a customer service representative at Baden Sports, apologizing for the mistake.

After a brief email conversation, Tam picked up the phone and called my wife. Instead of following the company procedure to exchange a product that involved shipping labels, returns, and delays, Tam was surprisingly willing to agree with my wife’s suggestion to donate the soccer ball to the Denver City Mission in lieu of going to the trouble of shipping the ball back.

Tam said that Baden Sports often donates its products to worthy charities during the year, so—although a bit unconventional when dealing with a fulfillment error—he was open to the idea of simply donating the soccer ball.

Now compare this experience with a typical online product exchange. Unless you’re thinking about Zappos or L.L.Bean, chances are you endured paperwork, delays, and perhaps an indifferent—or worse—customer service rep.

Congratulations to Tam and Baden Sports for making decisions in favor of their customers…while also making a child’s Christmas wish come true.

How many of you enjoy standing in line, waiting to be served?

Long before Disney mounted large flat screen televisions to keep its guests entertained while waiting in line to see the next attraction, supermarkets have positioned tabloid newspapers near the checkout aisles to ease the inevitable delays that accompany grocery shopping after work and on weekends.

Even though most high volume supermarkets offer a number of self-service checkout stations, it’s not uncommon to wait in line behind two or more people for a station to become available. So you can imagine my surprise when I saw this banner posted prominently above the checkout lanes at my local Albertsons supermarket:

“OUR PROMISE: Never 3 people in line at one time.”

With this bold promise, Albertsons demonstrates its commitment to customer service. And, while I don’t know the particulars of its process to ensure lines don’t extend three customers deep, I bet it involves cross-utilization of staff—enabling store employees whose primary job role is something other than ringing up groceries to fill in as cashiers when needed.

Contrast this with an experience I had last week at a major national toy retailer where the lines ran at least three customers deep while four employees stood behind the “Customer Service” counter within view of the congested checkout lanes.

I know from experience that this retailer wouldn’t dare post a similar banner for two reasons:

1.) It lacks the underlying commitment to customer service needed to display such a banner.
2.) It does not have a process in place to ensure the promise would be kept.

In fact, most businesses lack the underlying commitment to customer service and processes required to make bold promises in the area of customer service.

Don’t take my word for it. Judge for yourself the next time you’re standing in line, waiting to be served at one of them—which should be any day now.

What happened the last time you asked an employee to do something that was not his job?

Did he cheerfully accept the responsibility and work beyond his job description to fulfill your request? Did the employee begrudgingly fulfill your request—making sure you knew through body language or words that he was doing you a favor? Or, worse yet, did you hear some variation of “That’s not my job”?

Last night, I stopped by my local King Soopers grocery store to pick up a princess balloon for my daughter who turned five years old today. The floral area where the packaged mylar balloons were sold was accessible to customers but, due to the late hour, there was no employee manning the counter with the large helium tank used to fill the balloons.

I went in search of a store employee and encountered Sean. Knowing right away that it “wasn’t Sean’s job” to operate the helium tank, I prepared myself for disappointment. Based on my experience as a customer, I expected him to say something like, “That’s not my department,” or “I don’t know how to operate the helium tank,” or “That person doesn’t come in until 7:00 o’clock tomorrow morning.”

Instead, Sean accepted the mylar balloon package from me with a smile. As we walked towards the floral area, he said, “I’ve never worked the helium tank before but I’m sure I can figure it out.” Although he didn’t say it, Sean was communicating a refreshing response: “That’s my job!” A minute later he had the balloon out and followed the instructions on the packaging to properly fill the balloon.

His first attempt resulted in a large explosion as the $10 balloon burst due to being overfilled. Undaunted, he retrieved a replacement from the rack and tried again. This time, he put a little less helium in it and within minutes I was leaving the store with a large princess balloon that he had tethered to a strand of pink ribbon.

Making a lasting positive impression on customers is not hard to do. It simply requires genuine caring and the willingness to work outside of one’s job description when necessary in order to fulfill customers’ needs. Communicating “That’s my job!” is a great way to accomplish this while, at the same time, providing a pleasant surprise—because most customers won’t expect such a refreshing response.

How about you? What is your experience or example?