“Impossible to remember the last time there was bad service,” is just one conclusion about the level of customer service in the retail and hospitality sectors.

Training and staff selection were the main two main contributory components of the high standard identified by MSCNewswire’s customer service evaluation panel.In regard to hypermarket service, especially in check-out lanes, effective training had ensured that staff constantly possessed the ability to deal patiently with deliberate or inadvertent customer distractions and in doing so to“ keep smiling.”  The findings of the panel were released to coincide with the announcement of the three million annual overseas tourist visitor mark.The panel observed a constantly-displayed and very evident behaviour by staff in the hospitality and retail sectors pitched to be helpful “regardless of the circumstances.”The panel also concluded that customer service staff were “eager” to engage with clientele even on what might at face value have appeared a trivial matter.Panellists also noted that this high standard had been achieved at a time when employers could have used the excuse “that it was hard to find appropriate staff” due to the explosive growth of the entire service sector in comparatively recent times.Commenting on the skilful selection of customer-facing staff, often part-time, panellists observed that management demonstrated “an evident awareness” that not every soul was cut out for customer-facing duties. Correspondingly management/human resources had recognised that customer service staff required specific personal attributes, and had hired accordingly.They had selected sensitively the individuals “of all ages” who would most positively respond to their own in-house training.In regard to the retail and hospitality chains, employee induction drew attention to, and was structured around, the possibility of a long term career path, the panellists observed.A major contributor to problems in the customer service sector in the past had been an assumption by management that staff would stay for a limited time only, and that they therefore required only abbreviated training.Panellists concluded that the ability of management to chart a merit-only career path for young inductees was an “overarching” factor in what was described as an “extraordinary improvement” in customer service.