By Atty. Antonio P. Pekas
I love the intro to every episode on TV of Undercover Boss. Since these were parts of an old Canada TV series these were filmed before the pandemic. Yet the intro is as current as if it was produced after the world economy started recovering.
It goes like this. With the world economy still uncertain, heads of big biz organizations are undertaking “extreme actions to stay ahead of the game”. They have “to adapt to survive” as competitors are waiting to grab a slice of the action. So they go incognito to the front lines of their businesses to determine how their employees are serving their customers, to see for themselves if there was anything they can improve or anything wrong that needs to be corrected. Otherwise, they will start losing their customers or eventually their jobs if their companies go bankrupt. As they say, just sitting in corporate headquarters is a recipe for failure.
Such are even more imperative to small or medium businesses if they are to stay afloat, much more if they want to attract some of the customers of the big guys.
Locally, I have seen something worth relating the other day. One big business is really doing everything to attract more customers which can only mean getting the customers of smaller businesses around town.
I am referring to SM City Baguio. I went to run an errand there and I dropped by their hardware store for some small items. One was a liter of paint for a part of the house. When I told them the color I want, there was no factory one-liter can available. The sales boy then said they could mix it right there in front of me. Really?
So I said OK. I thought it was going to be messy as small paint shops were. But I was surprised it was not. The sales boy was in his preppy SM uniform, with vest and all. And he did it in that flashy SM store. There was a machine to shake and rotate the container to assure proper mixing of the paints with different colors. In a minute I got a liter of the color I wanted.
A sales lady with her beautiful uniform was also mixing some paint for another customer and she also did it on that clean and shiny SM counter. No fuss, no messy stuff. In no time, the mixing was over and she and her uniform were still spotless. As if she just walked in on the first hour of the morning.
As she handed the mixed paint to the customer, she offered her a card which will earn some points for every purchase. It will later entitle her to some discount after accumulating enough points.
What really got my attention was SM showed that one can buy house paint in a very clean way.
The traditional idea of mixing of paint in a store means being messy– unsightly paint spills on clothes and everywhere.
SM changed all that, and from what I have seen, it is attracting more and more customers.
It is called innovation. Or using one’s brains.**
