I´m a stickler for customer service and my children have indicated on more than one occasion that they tire of my "see that was great customer service" observations whenever we are playing the consumer. But I´m not dissuaded. I´ll cite their greeting, their questions, and their listening skills - if extraordinary. All in the interest of providing a parental lesson you might say. Which brings me back to my visit to Best Buy this past Wednesday.

When we went to the computer section an employee by the name of Nathan approached us and asked if we needed assistance. We mentioned that we were looking to purchase a desktop to which he replied "Let me find you a consultant...he will be happy to assist you." He requested a consultant over the store public address system, told us a consultant will be with us shortly...and went back to working on a terminal behind the counter. After about two minutes he came to us again, apologized that a consultant had yet to arrive and said "I´d be happy to help you."

And what does this have to do with recruitment?  Best Buy - at least in my personal experience - has the recruitment of technical folks for their stores down pat. They seem to have embedded a process that consistently hires star performers. Not only did Nathan exemplify the best of customer care, his product knowledge made it easy for us to see the benefits of the computers he showed us.

As we were standing at the checkout paying for the new HP desktop I asked Nathan how long he had been employed by Best Buy and how he liked it. Suffice it to say that he raved about his current position, the training he receives, and described the career path he envisioned with Best Buy. Wow!  What a story! I loved it!

But what I loved more was what I heard from my teenage son as we loaded our monitor, tower, wireless mouse, and assorted other peripherals into the back of our car. "Dad, that guy was amazing, what great customer service!"

Ahhh yes...lessons learned from a great hire. Thanks, Nathan! And to the staffing team that hired you....... two thumbs up!