Customers FIRST At Jewel!

Can you put the customer “FIRST”?  Do you know what “FIRST” means, aside from being the absolute top of numerical and chronological order?

Tapping A New Training Well…

Yes, this is another training video.

No, it isn’t for Wendy’s.

We’ve tapped that well (you can only find so many videos about Hot Drinks, Cold Drinks, and Grill Skills), and we’re moving on to the lucrative field of working in a grocery store!  Specifically, we’re going to be a real pro at Jewel!

Customers FIRST!

In 1988, the training department at Jewel Supermarkets (which has been part of Albertson’s since 1999) created a training video to outline their five-point customer service protocol, Customers FIRST, complete with a totally of-the-moment design for the logo!

And yes, FIRST is an acronym!  It stands for…

The Elmhurst, Illinois location on York Road, which is still open to this day, participated in the filming of the training video, which details the five-point system of customer service and shows the correct – and, hilariously incorrect – ways to provide customer service to shoppers.

The video features several employees, one of whom, Christine Garlisch, commented on YouTube that she is one of the employees in the video, admiring an unseen customer’s unseen pin.

And as friendly as she is, Customers FIRST prominently focuses on Joan and Steve as prime examples of what not to do…and how to follow the FIRST way of customer service.

Now, I’m hoping that Joan isn’t the kind of employee she demonstrates, but her bad employee stuff is…truly the worst.  Steve just says everything out loud that we’ve ever had to suppress working in customer service.  But even the actions he has to demonstrate are downright hilarious.

There really isn’t much I can say beyond that.  This video is a “seeing is worth believing” in a world of training videos falling into the same category.  Its uploader, nickycheese, was employed by Jewel in 1988 at the Elmhurst location, training new employees.  He was obviously a real pro at Jewel!

And no, he doesn’t appear in it, but says in the video description that he snatched the tape on his last day of work, but not before having new hires watch it multiple times under his training guidance.

You’ll Be A Real Pro At Jewel…

After you watch this short but sweet training video!

Upload via nickycheese

The “Target Lady” of Jewel

Folks, this is a good one.  Heck, they’re all good in a terrible way.  But this one has that little extra charm you look for in “don’t do this!” demonstrations from training videos.  We’ve got Jewel’s own Target Lady (I know she kinda looks like Roseanne Barr, but she sounds like the Target Lady from Saturday Night Live, am I right?), giant hair, big glasses, and the “once I’m done with the customer, it’s out of my hands” attitude said out loud. These are real Jewel employees who had to put on their finest acting skills to make this work.

I wonder how long these employees worked for Jewel prior to this video’s production, and how long they stayed after.

And if Joan was really like this.

So many mysteries, destined to remain..mysteries.