Too nice??

[patgund]

Wall Street dings Costco CEO for being too nice to employees and customers

Is being generous good for business? - Costco CEO profits as he offers top pay, benefits

"Costco's average pay, for example, is $17 an hour, 42 percent higher than its fiercest rival, Wal-Mart's Sam's Club. And Costco's health plan makes those at many other retailers look Scroogish. One analyst, Bill Dreher of Deutsche Bank, complained last year that at Costco "it's better to be an employee or a customer than a shareholder."

Sinegal begs to differ. He rejects Wall Street's assumption that to succeed in discount retailing, companies must pay poorly and skimp on benefits, or must ratchet up prices to meet Wall Street's profit demands."

Comments

[ophy.livejournal.com]

Damn - that makes me wanna go work for Costco!

[angelique69.livejournal.com]

LOL Not me. I'd rather be making jewelry. ;D It sounds very good though. Blessed Be, Angelique

[joyeuse13.livejournal.com]

If they treat their employees so well, I wonder why their customer service is so pathetic?

[duckflambe.livejournal.com]

Maybe I've just been lucky to avoid the bad stores, but I've never had a problem with customer service at CostCo. It is one of the few places where the cashiers always say hello and the return desk never tries to convince you that you can't return something.

I'd shop there more, but I hate buying things in bulk (for me bulk buying == bulk consuming).

[joyeuse13.livejournal.com]

I've only been twice, but I've always gotten curt, surly service from the cashiers.

[firedrake-mor.livejournal.com]

Wow! This man actually sounds like he has his head on straight. He's learned what I've always been taught was a cardinal rule of business: treat your employees right in order to get the best effort from them.

As for surly service from cashiers: I've had that problem precisely once, and when I mentioned it to the customer service manager, I was given a sincere apoiogy, a gift certificate, and that cashier was replaced on the line and that sat her down, not to reprimand her, necessarily, but to find out what was wrong. Yes, she was talked to about her attitude, but they were more interested in what was causing it. I didn't hear the end of it, because I had to leave, but as I left, I heard her say "I'd been yelled at one too many times today . . ."

I liked that approach from the manager. Now, it's certain that different managers have different methods, and I don't know if this is standard practice, but seems in concert with the CEOs attitude.