And that is why I am always prepared to pay a few extra quid to shop there. It saves me more money in the long run than it costs me in the short term. Whenever I go in at a busy period, they have a "floor walker" (today's equivalent of Captain Peacock from "are you being served") who asks what the customer is looking for, assigns an assistant, asking them to wait on a customer seating area (sofas, coffee and water cooler). The assistant then helps you make your purchase and doesn't bugger off when after they show you the shelf. They are fully trained in all aspects of their department (and in many others as well) and I have yet to fault to their knowledge on the products (as much as can be expected. EDIT: No.....more than can be expected).
Whilst shopping for four slice toaster last year, the assistant knew about every product and all the features, what they did and why. The assistant did not leave my side until I was satisfied I had all the information I needed. She even had four cardboard cut-outs of different sized bread slices (all marked with different makes of bread, Hovis, Kingsmill etc.), to demonstrate that the slots would take the bread (a particular issue with many makes of four slice toaster
)
I used to go to places like Comet, Currys and Dixons. If I asked an assistant to tell me about a product, they would pick up the card from the shelf and read it to me. I mean, I could quite easily do that myself. If I asked why features were there, I would get replies such as, "how am I supposed to know." I bought a DVD player from Comet six years ago. I wanted to see how worked and what the quality of the picture was. They would not hook it up to a television set to demonstrate it to me. When I bought the refurbished DVD player from John Lewis, before even asking, they offered to demonstrate it to me and show the controls.
I won't shop anywhere else for these sorts of things.
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I also understand that it is a very nice to work as well. If I ever decide to enter the world of retail, that is where I would work.
Each employee is not an "employee," they are "partners," with a genuine stake in the business. They earn a basic salary, but also earn shares in the profits from the company. The employee benefits are second to none. They run employee committees (I think they call them "councils"), who have a real say in how the company is run.