I queued at the checkout and, as the lady on the till finished with the customers in front of me, a colleague of hers asked how she was.
"I was fine until I got here," was the reply. A grimace underlined her unhappiness.
This intrigued me so, once she had completed dealing with my items and I saw nobody else was waiting for service, I opened a conversation.
"Sorry, but I couldn't help overhearing your brief discussion with your colleague. I hope you have a good day and feel better soon."
"Oh, that," she said. "It was what I was confronted with when I walked in. We have to speed up to shorten the checkout time."
I looked at her questioningly.
"I think it is wrong. Customers come here to buy their food and won't be happy seeing their food roughly handled." She emphasised the point with sweeps of her hand that demonstrated how things would be almost flung down the slope in the process.
Her point was well made because I recalled such a situation not long ago in their shop and found it difficult to keep my packing fast enough to prevent the accumulation of an unwieldy pile of stuff. Added to this is the fact that once the cashier has finished the processing, she and the queue are all waiting for me to finish my packing and pay my bill so the next customer can be served. All eyes are on me because I am apparently holding up the traffic.
Yes there is a need to process customers swiftly to prevent excessive queueing without the expense of additional staff costs. However, there is also the need to ensure the customers don't feel pressured or feel their food is being badly handled.
This apparent attempt to speed things up can easily lead to more customers accepting the "automatic" offer of help with their packing. It could even tempt them to go somewhere more comfortable to do their grocery shopping.
On the surface, it would seem that an order has been conveyed rather than a problem-solving discussion held. Had it been the latter, this checkout lady would have had the opportunity to raise her concerns, which were based on her value system which, in itself, was customer-centric.
It would have helped rephrase the objectives: how can we speed up customer processing without increasing costs and without making the customers feel rushed?
With my experience with problem solving in a team environment, I would expect some interesting and helpful ideas might well come of such a session. Sharing the issue with those who implement a solution helps focus attention on the satisfying of all stakeholders as well as create workable solutions.
An afterthought struck me as I left the premises. There has been quite a heavy turnover of staff over the past months — old faces disappear and new ones arrive. If my assumptions about leadership style are correct, then a high staff churn is only to be expected — with all its attendant costs.
