Why I’m Rite Aid Fan for Life: A Customer Success Story

Here’s my disclaimer first: I have never endorsed a store before. I don’t get any special privileges from Rite Aid. This is truly a shoutout.

I live in the suburbs of Atlanta with my wife and two kids. Since I am originally from India, most of my family is still there and we travel every two years or so to go see them. Every time, one of the most challenging things we have to do is to get our kids’ photos taken for their visas. I know that might sound trivial, but if you’re a parent you probably know how this goes. Try taking a picture of your hyperactive son or daughter (both in my case) with the following requirements:

• Looking straight at the camera
• Chin-up
• See the entire face clearly (including the ears)
• Background should be white and plain

It’s normal when you think of any adult taking that kind of picture, but small kids could cause a havoc. So here’s what happened…

We went to the local Rite Aid store in our neighborhood of Alpharetta where I met two high school kids doing an evening shift. These kids were incredible. I hope you’ll think so, too, if I do any justice to the story I am about to tell you:

First 30 minutes: We walk in and try everything in the world to get our 18-month old daughter to sit on a table in front of the white panel, but she won’t settle down! She grabbed all the Cheerio’s from the back row and start jumping on them. We grabbed toys, balls, flashlights or whatever to keep her occupied, but that only distracted her. Meanwhile, my 5-year-old son is getting bored and tired so he keeps asking if he can buy toys or chocolates over and over again. At this point, my wife and I are stressed, tired, and frustrated. Plus, our appointment at the visa office was the very next day and this had to be done!

60 minutes: Thankfully, this was late evening and there were not many people at this Rite Aid. The two boys that were in charge of the store jumped in to help. My wife had a brilliant idea that if Mommy and Daddy weren’t there at all and hid behind one of the aisles so our daughter wouldn’t see us, she would be more disciplined. Who knew that was the trick?! We were hiding behind the aisle and giving instructions to the Rite Aid employees on how to take the picture. These kids took probably 20 or 30 photos and with every one of them, something wouldn’t be just right. My daughter started looking down, or her hair would circle around her ears so they had to push it back. She was trying to jump off and run! They had to keep bringing her back.

90 minutes: We’ve consumed the entire time trying to get the photos taken in every possible way and our daughter was getting tired. The boys were determined and one of them (whose name is Jairo) said he was determined to make it happen for us. He got a bunch of toys and held them behind the camera to make our daughter focus straight at him. He did every possible mom/dad trick to get her focused for a fraction of a second to hit click. And it worked!

This was amazing to watch since I don’t think as a high-schooler, I personally would have had the patience to help anyone for an hour and a half. In fact, in the end when it was all said and done, I offered to tip these guys for their amazing efforts and they said, “No, No, No.” I was amazed by their incredibly helpful nature, integrity, and patience.

At this point, all I asked for them to do was at least let me take their picture so I can write about it. So here it is!

You can see all the toys in their hands that they used to keep my daughter focused and engaged. These two kids have a bright future not because they helped us out but the way that they did. They understood their job and importance of customer service. If they keep this attitude, as they go out in this brave new world, they will be successful because customer success is the best and the most important thing that everyone should focus on.

Here’s to the Rite-Aid store team and the next generation of customer success. I think Lincoln Murphy, one person who truly understands and preaches customer success better than anyone I know, will give this a thumbs up. You guys rock! If you want to give a shout out to an awesome example of customer success, let me know in the comments section below.

Thank you for reading!