Part 3 of 3 of a Conversation with B.J. Orsi, Regional Manager, Bed Bath & Beyond
B.J. Orsi is one of twelve Bed Bath & Beyond Regional Managers, each overseeing about 40-50 Store Managers, who, in turn, each manage about four Department Managers. B.J. has been at the company for over twenty years. I recently had the pleasure of talking with him about how his company operates and what sets it apart in the marketplace. I am sharing some key ideas from that conversation in three blog posts, of which this is the third.
My last two blog posts have shared ideas from my recent conversation with Bed Bath & Beyond Regional Manager B. J. Orsi. They focused on adapting to local consumers and on creating a teaching culture. Today, I’m focusing on his comments regarding how his company learns from observing other organizations.
B.J.: I guess growing up with our company culture we look at every retailer and we try to find what everyone
does well and try to incorporate what we do and what we can do better. We are really self critical and we are always looking at ourselves as if we do not do well enough. If we can’t do it ourselves internally then we think, Who is doing it and who can we emulate? We are always trying to improve. This way people will walk around the store saying, Wow! This is a great and beautiful store and great company! We look at it and go, Wow, if we can keep figuring things out we will be really good. We do not know yet how good we can be, I guess.
I do not know if there is any one retailer we look to. I think there are bits and pieces we get from every retailer and say, Hey, these guys merchandises this category well but maybe we can do it better. Or maybe a company is great at customer service, an area in which we strive to be the best. So, I think we have always taken bits and pieces from as many organizations as we can and incorporated these into what we do.
There was a restaurant chain out in Ohio that I went to for lunch one day and the manager walked around to each table and asked if everyone one was okay and if there was anything he could do for me he would. It was the way he did it that impressed me. I left that lunch with a feeling of a high level of service, quality and follow-up. So I implemented that policy in my store. I said, You know what we are going to do from now on? I want our assistant managers to walk around all day today and talk to all the customers and ask if there was anything that you could do for them and how was their experience. So, we started implementing that into our store service program, which exists to today.
Jose: You know what is interesting, we are going to take a family vacation and we are going to do Disney and Universal. I’ve found when you go to Disney and then you go to any other amusement park – you can’t help but say, Why aren’t these guys just walking through Disney with a clip-board and copy their queuing techniques, to make you never feel like you’re on a long line? And probably a lot of other easy-to-observe traits of a market leader’s success formula.
You have to wonder why people just aren’t more observant. Other people have figured out good things, and like you did, you appropriate, you borrow, you adapt – because you cannot have every good idea coming from your own organization but there are a lot of good ideas out there. We can all learn from other people’s mistakes and other people’s trials.
B.J.: Exactly!
Jose: Well B.J. thank you! You have been very gracious with your time and insights. It is all very helpful.
