Constantly Striving To Serve You Better

C.S.T.S.Y.B.

It is not easy not to think about supermarkets and their service offering. Supermarkets are the 21st Century's equivalent of
Mr. & Mrs. Neanderthal's happy hunting ground for berries and buffalo and as such consumers spend a lot of time thinking about their local supermarket, even if it is not necessarily within the context of constantly striving to serve you better.  They might not always express their opinion when they're at their store, but boy, there is no stopping some customers when they have a forum and a willing audience.

The midnight to dawn radio talkback host on local station 1ZB recently provided such a forum. The discussion centered around aisle width when I went to bed at 0.30 am and when the radio sprung to action at 5.30 am to wake me up, host and guests were still at it, although the debate had shifted to meat wrapping, shopping basket cleanliness
and rotten apples.

Based on the two opinion snapshots I was exposed to, there appears to be a real focus on matters relating to convenience andhygiene. Consumers want to find the product they are  looking for faster and they  want to be able to manoeuvre trolleys around the store without experiencing traffic jams. There must not be any out of stocks and all food and in-store equipment must be food safety assured and germ free.

Reasonable requests - aren't they?

Constantly Striving To Serve You Better

Foodtown 1958

When I joined Foodtown in the latter part of the last century (don't you just love the way that sounds?), prior to the eighties' sharemarket boom and subsequent crash, company founder Tom Ah Chee had already retired. The business was however still adhering to the principles he had fashioned and insisted upon, with his presence still very much in evidence.

In those days, prior to emails and computers, when letters were still being produced on a typewriter, every internal memo was concluded with the initials C.S.T.S.Y.B. underneath the signature of the writer.

I tried for a while without success to figure out what these letters stood for and eventually asked one of the old-timers, who was absolutely horrified that this topic had not been covered during my induction phase into the company. Listening to his dismay, one would have been forgiven for thinking that the world had ended.

C.S.T.S.Y.B. I was told, stood for Constantly Striving To Serve You Better.

It summed up the operating credo of the fledgling Foodtown chain as Tom Ah Chee and his collaborators expanded from their first Otahuhu store to what had become a 27 store empire by the time I joined.

C.S.T.S.Y.B. was a brilliant way of enshrining some very fundamental truths, namely: that the job is never done, there is always room for improvement, providing good service has to be part of the underlying business philosophy and acknowledgement of the fact that the customer has a choice. Businesses today could do a lot worse than adopting Tom AhChee's philosophy.

The customer often misses out these days. Service means different things to different people. Within a fresh produce context, I suggest that attention to detail in the following areas constitutes good service:

  1. Customers do not have to go searching for advertised specials. These are readily identified in an easy to access part of the department.
  2. The banana display is well stocked with bananas that are ready to eat.
  3. The department is kept in a clean, tidy and hygienic state. This means no loose onions skins flying around on the floor, no rotten produce on display and no clouds of vinegar flies rising from the display tables when one claps one's hands.
  4. Every item is ticketed and the ticketed price corresponds with the price loaded into the front-end scan system.
  5. Before staff take their tea break, they ensure that there is no water on the floor of the retail section and any empty cartons or crates are removed from the display areas.

These are just my top five. You may well have something you might want to add. Whether you stick to my list or use your own - it pays to remember that customers do have choices and that, particularly in the case of fresh produce, there is always someone around the corner who offers an alternative.

The State of Affairs in 2026

I wrote this C.S.T.S.Y.B. article in the early 2000s.  Some extra considerations have entered the service equation between supermarket teams and their customers.  These include rang extensions, refrigerated produce displays, "store shoppers" collating consumer orders for delivery or collection, automated store replenishment practices, barcodes or QR codes on individuals produce items in ever increasing numbers, stricter food safety rules - the list goes on.

What has not changed though is customers wanting to be treated with respect and being able to buy whatever it is they need or want, in at least near perfect condition and at a reasonable price.  

That applies to the entire store but is most certainly very prevalent within the expectations customers have of the produce department. And How Fresh is Fresh is certainly on the minds of most customers purchasing fresh produce!