Leader - Feargal Quinn

The Right Choice, Not the Easy Choice

The first thing that hits you when you walk into one of the 19 Superquinn stores in and around Dublin is the comforting aroma of baking bread. Big brick ovens, giant sacks of Irish flour, and bakers in caps complete the picture. Superquinn may be the only grocery chain in Europe with a full-fledged bakery in every store. Besides the enticing smell, the bakeries guarantee that customers never buy bread more than four hours old. And with twice-daily deliveries, fruits and vegetables are farm-stand fresh. Each batch of mushrooms, lettuce, and melons is marked with the time it was picked, a picture, and a biography of its grower.

But what really sets Superquinn apart is what's behind the dazzling products and the impeccable service. To shop at Superquinn is to feel understood, to see your questions and complaints addressed before you raise them. Why do you have to pay for the broccoli stalks and carrot tops you never use? At Superquinn, you don't. The store provides scissors at the display, so you can cut off what you don't want. Why can't you ever decipher your receipt? At Superquinn, the checkout technology provides a running tab on a screen that faces the customer, and then organizes the final receipt by product category, rather than by the order in which products were scanned.

The Superquinn experience is not so much a product of high-concept design principles as it is the result of Quinn's first principle: In every deed, focus on persuading the customer to return. Quinn calls it the "boomerang principle." The challenge in building a business on the boomerang principle, he says, is that, in many cases, the option that brings the customer back isn't as quantifiable as the option that maximizes profit on the current transaction.

Take the standard industry practice of stocking candy at checkout counters, which causes a hassle for moms shopping with kids. "They kick up blue murder until the mother buys them something from the display of goodies," says Quinn. While Quinn had hard data spelling out the considerable revenue he would forgo, he had no accountant-friendly evidence on the benefits of removing the sweets. But clearly, removing the displays presented an opportunity to generate repeat business from grateful mothers. "This is where leadership comes in," he says. "It requires courage to take the unquantifiable option." Superquinn ultimately went with the customer-driven choice and banned sweets at checkouts across the entire chain -- to an immediate and overwhelmingly positive response.

In an even more dramatic appeal to maternal goodwill, Quinn and colleagues instituted the Superquinn Playhouse concept some 20 years ago. Today, every store features a professionally staffed playhouse where mothers can leave young children while they shop. The program costs Superquinn a bundle each year -- but it has earned even more in loyal customers and reputation. Kindergarten teachers around the country (Ireland doesn't have preschool) recognize "Superquinn kids" as the most socialized and school ready of each new class.

The Best Listener Wins

It's the explicit job of every Superquinn employee to cultivate a bone-deep feel for the customer. "If you believe you're in the business of serving the customer better," says Quinn, "then you have to move the center of gravity of the organization to where the business meets the customers." In Superquinn's case, that means the shop floor. Quinn did away with the company's "head office" years ago in favor of distributed support offices for management functions. Managers are expected to spend substantial time each week on the shop floor. Quinn himself spends most of his week shuttling among the 19 stores. He rarely goes two weeks without visiting each shop or attending regularly scheduled customer panels. Store managers have tiny, dingy offices at the back of their shop -- to remind them that their real work is on the floor. Most meetings among colleagues -- as well as those with suppliers, partners, and managers -- take place out on the shop floor.

When it comes to getting a feel for the customer, nothing beats "jumping the counter." Each month, Superquinn managers are required to spend time "in the customer's shoes" (shopping, asking questions, lodging complaints, waiting in line). "The difference between being a customer yourself and waiting on a customer is amazing," says Quinn. "What seems reasonable or even valuable from the perspective of the company is often glaringly wrong from the point of view of the customer."