The last mile

Visited a small music store in Singapore . They had some amazing music playing which drew me to the store . Fluer - the sales associate in the store approached me and asked if she could help . During the course of the interaction she tried to understand my music preferences , located and played an eclectic range of music most of which I liked . Some of it I bought .  Will I go back to that store in a future visit ? Most certainly , yes .

As I walked out of the store I was happy with the whole experience . Heard an eclectic mix , bought albums I looked forward to listening to .

In retrospect I realized the stark contrast of this music buying experience at a small store visavis large format stores like Virgin , HMV , stores in India .  The larger stores tend to be impersonal (a phenomenon not restricted to music retailing ) The general idea of the retailer seems to be to put in the effort to source the products and put them out on display .  In many stores it’s quite a challenge to locate a sales associate and then to get relevant or meaningful service . It's easier to improvise on the merchandise range , displays , layout in the store . Plugging the last mile makes a significant difference – to the customer and to the business . It’s also the most challenging part for any business because meaningful , personalized , friendly service is not an outcome of automation or money or even number of people deployed in the store . It springs from the culture and the values (of the organization) which have to be consciously and carefully nurtured  . As they say in Ayurveda – you can’t treat a part without addressing the whole .