I’m always impressed when I run across the owner or general manager of a large retail store working the check-out line. It doesn’t happen very often, but when it does, it’s usually a sight to behold (think over-aged person fumbling with cash register and credit card terminal, and you won’t be too far from the truth). Aside from the joy one receives as a result of watching the big dog work just as hard as everyone else, I’m usually hopeful that the owner or manager in question is gaining a specific and measurable level of respect, appreciation, and understanding for his or her customer’s and their needs and wants.

Most business owners–especially those who run large retail operations–remove themselves from the showroom floor, favoring instead to troll the hallways and offices that the customers cannot see. They always have meetings to attend, people to hire and fire, reports to review, orders to place, and major decisions to make. Somewhere along the way though, they eventually become so disconnected to what’s happening in the front of the house that they themselves could not even begin tell you in which isle you’ll be able to find the JELL-O.

In my line of business, nearly 100 percent of Doba’s customers–all of whom are small to medium-size business owners and entrepreneurs themselves–interact on a daily basis with their customers. Our customers, for the most part, sell goods and products on Internet sites like eBay, Overstock, and Amazon, or on their own web sites or retail operations. Unlike their larger brethren, on a daily basis, our customers field questions and inquires from their current and potential customers themselves. For the most part, they have no back hallways to patrol or front-line employees to handle such trivial matters (as many large retail owners would call them) such as, “Where can I find the JELL-O?” or “Why does your store do it like that?”

Recently, as I’ve mentioned in other posts, Doba exhibited at eBay Live! in Las Vegas, and in addition to bringing some of our own front line employees to the show to work our booth, our entire executive-level management team attended the show as well, and just like everyone else, they too worked the exhibit booth, explaining to anyone and everyone who came by the booth exactly what Doba does and why they should consider us as a part of their product sourcing solution. At other trade shows I’ve attended, executives and management team-level personnel come to the show, but rarely will you see them working in their booth or making themselves available to anyone who approaches–regardless of age, appearance, or company affiliation.

The reason we choose to bring our management team to shows like eBay Live isn’t as a reward or so they can schmooze it up with other muckity-mucks on the sidelines of the exhibit hall. We bring our executives because at Doba we believe that everyone in the company should connect with customers on a one-on-one basis. Regardless of what their title is or what floor they work on in our building, listening to our current and prospective customer is job one, and we take that responsibility very seriously.

Last week, after everything finally settled down back at our offices, many of those same management team members who attended eBay Live! got on the phones and called some of our customers. At many companies I know, those types of calls would have been assigned exclusively to customer service reps or assistants, but at Doba we recognize that a great company is one that listens to its customers and members and, as a result, can develop the propensity to anticipate their needs.