After my wife had returned home from the hospital after delivering our fourth child, she sent me out to the store with a short list of items she needed.  One of those items was Witch Hazel.

I stopped by my local chain drug store and, while I was able to locate the more common items, I was unable to locate the Witch Hazel.  I found an employee at the pharmacy counter (who was drinking a bottle of Gatorade) and asked.  His response didn’t inspire much confidence: “I think it’s by the razors.  I don’t remember the aisle number.  It’s at that end of the store (while pointing).”  As he returned to his Gatorade, I headed in the direction he pointed and came across the razors.

It didn’t seem like the part of the store that would contain Witch Hazel, but I scanned the shelves anyway.  After a minute or two, I tracked down a nearby employee and asked her the same question.  She took me one aisle over and assisted me in the search.  Again, she didn’t seem too confident saying, “I thought we used to stock it around here somewhere. We might be out of it.”

Since we could not find an empty area on the shelves that was assigned to Witch Hazel, I considered searching for the store manager to verify whether or not they were out of stock or the product was located elsewhere.  But, alas, I’d already asked two employees and was beginning to lack confidence in the store itself.

So I left the store and drove across the parking lot to my local Safeway.  I approached the pharmacy counter at Safeway and asked for the location of the Witch Hazel product.  What happened next, in my mind, separates my local chain drug store from my local Safeway:  The employee made eye contact with me, smiled, then said, “Here, let me show you where it is.”

She came out from behind the counter and walked me to the bottles of liquid Witch Hazel.  She bent down to pick one up asking, “Is this what you’re looking for?”  I said, “I’m sorry.  My wife asked for Witch Hazel pads, not the liquid.”  She then brought me to the other side of the aisle and said, “How about these?” as she handed me a container with the pads. I said, “That’s perfect, thanks.”

She smiled and said, “Did your wife just have a baby?”  I smiled back and said, “Yes.  We had a baby boy on Tuesday.”  Again, she smiled and said, “Congratulations!”

This is a great example of an employee reading her customer.  She could see, perhaps by my appearance, that I wasn’t sleeping much and was likely running errands for my wife who was at home recovering from the birth of a child.  How perceptive.  How personal.  What a positive impression she made.

While I cannot speak for everyone, as each of our experiences are so uniquely singular, the next time I need a pharmacy product I will drive past my local chain drug store and return to Safeway.

I recently heard a story about a Paradise Bakery & Café general manager who earned the nickname “Cowbell Sandy” from her adoring staff.

It seems that a couple of years ago she started an incentive program to increase add-on sales of bottled water, cookies, and other high margin items. She worked with vendors to sponsor the prizes, ranging from iTunes gift cards to iPods.

Employees were so enthusiastic about the incentive program that they were constantly asking Sandy to see the printout to determine how they were performing compared to their co-workers. The report was the only way that employees could see who on the team was generating the add-on sales.

That gave Sandy another idea. Instead of tracking the incentive program electronically and then letting people know how they were doing only when the report was printed, she decided to clank a stainless steel container with a metal spoon and hoot and holler just a bit to acknowledge—in the moment—when one of her team members had added sales.

In doing so, Sandy included an element of spontaneous recognition to the incentive program. This not only created additional enthusiasm among the team, it also created a stir with customers in the mall’s food court. All of sudden, customers were coming by to see what all the clanking and laughter was about. This increased store traffic in a competitive environment with plenty of other dining options to choose from.

A couple of weeks into the promotion, the staff got together and bought a cowbell for Sandy to use in place of her makeshift noisemaker. From there, the nickname “Cowbell Sandy” was inevitable.

The program was a huge success! Top producers were adding an average of $11.50 an hour in add-on sales. Team members were receiving constant recognition from an inspiring manager in a high-energy environment filled with enthusiasm—and customers!

How about you? Do you know a “Cowbell Sandy”? Or, maybe you are a “Cowbell Sandy”? If so, feel free to chime in…