Did you ever walk into a retail store and find the people so helpful and the service so outstanding you just felt good about the store? And just as you finished one transaction and started to look for the next item on your list didn’t a smiling face approach you and take you to where the item was? And as you reached your third department didn’t another person interrupt their walkie-talkie conversation by saying to whoever was on the other end of the conversation; “Hold on a sec I’m helping a guest for a moment? In fact, have you ever been addressed as a guest in a retail store? And just as you were beginning to think; “This retailer has their act together,” wasn’t the image smashed as you ran into the charm-school drop out who couldn’t answer your question and wasn’t going to ask for help over her walkie-talkie? Didn’t you then move on and make another selection which, along with all your other purchases, you took to the cash register? Wasn’t it there that you ran into the charm-school drop outs’ mentor who began her greeting by explaining all the things she wasn’t going to do to help you? Didn’t she allow the conveyer belt to keep running even though items from people in line behind you kept coming to the front so you couldn’t empty your basket without having to put your items on top of someone else’s items? And didn’t you think; “Shopping at TARGET the GOOD the BAD and the UGLY in one single shopping trip. What genius came up with that?”

Don’t get me wrong, I think Target is one of the sharpest retailers in this country. They are, in my mind, the one big box store that delivers on “The Promise.” The promise being that the store is big enough and carries enough stock and assortment to meet all your shopping needs. Many of the “BIG BOX” stores suggest “The Promise” . . . but few deliver.

 I shop at Target because I feel that they will have what I’m looking for, they will have enough pleasant people to help me find what I’m looking for without overpowering me and their prices are competitive. Today’s experience is a classic example of one of the things you have to deal with as a retailer. That “THING” is finding competent help for the prices you are willing to pay. Target seems to have found a way to motivate people and keep them pleasant as they go about their task of filling stock, taking care of customers and doing it in a way that makes you think they are enjoying what they are doing.

 Typically your last experience with a store and thus the last memory you have of a store is check out. Target seems to have a system worked out that as registers start to back up cashiers come out of the woodwork to open more registers. The simplicity of the stores’ method of handling a credit card at the end of a transaction is second to none. In short, Target is a great store to shop. But as good as they are they are still at the mercy of people having a bad day and taking out on their customers.

Had I not shopped the store before, the actions of the woman at the check-out could have destroyed what had been a relatively good shopping experience. She might have sent me on my way with a very bad memory of the store. She might even have convinced me not to come back because of the way I was treated during my last ten minutes in the store. Fortunately I’d been there before and knew the quality of the store.

Are bad check-out experiences costing you customers . . . What Genius came up with that?