Speaker 1: It's nice side with WBS video all right.
Speaker 2: I think all of us of a certain vintage will
Speaker 2: well remember the big battle over market Basket. The future
Speaker 2: of market Basket, I think the best grocery chain in
Speaker 2: New England. That's a point of view.
Speaker 3: I think that we have.
Speaker 2: We're blessed with some really good grocery change. I think
Speaker 2: Roach Brothers great local chain. I'm not as enamored with
Speaker 2: the chains from that are owned by big corporate interests
Speaker 2: from around the country, and I think most of you
Speaker 2: know that, But for me, it's Market Basket and Roach Brothers.
Speaker 2: In market Basket certainly, I think is the odds on
Speaker 2: favorite of most of my listeners. But it was ten
Speaker 2: years ago when the Market Basket broke out into a
Speaker 2: civil war between a couple of cousins who were fighting
Speaker 2: for support of Market Basket, and it was pretty dramatic.
Speaker 2: I mean, it wasn't, as I said earlier, the Hatfields
Speaker 2: versus the McCoy's. It was a demulus against the Demulis
Speaker 2: and the membership, the employees, the customer base. They all
Speaker 2: sided with the ultimate winner, Arthur Demulis.
Speaker 3: But it was a struggle.
Speaker 2: And we're delighted to be joined tonight by professor at
Speaker 2: the MIT School Sloan of Management, which is one of
Speaker 2: the great business schools in the country, Professor Thomas Cocon
Speaker 2: And again, I'm trying as best I can to give
Speaker 2: you but the proper pronunciation of that name. And if
Speaker 2: I'm getting anywhere close, let me know. Okay, how are you, Professor?
Speaker 4: I'm good, Dan, And if my mother was still with us,
Speaker 4: she'd be proud of you.
Speaker 3: You got it right, Thank you. You did. You did
Speaker 3: a thesis on this.
Speaker 2: You authored a case study, if you will, not on
Speaker 2: a thesis, but your co author a case study about
Speaker 2: the protests. Were you in the area at the time.
Speaker 2: Did you watch it unfold or is there something that
Speaker 2: you came to after the event this pitched battle in
Speaker 2: the summer of twenty fourteen.
Speaker 4: Oh, we were in the area. And in fact, if
Speaker 4: you ask my wife about it, what did we do
Speaker 4: in the summer of twenty fourteen, she'll just roll her
Speaker 4: eyes and say market basket. It wasn't her favorite experience,
Speaker 4: but it took up very much of our summer, and
Speaker 4: rightfully so, because there was such a unique, unprecedented event
Speaker 4: and development, and so interesting from the standpoint of someone
Speaker 4: like me who studied labor management relations since the nineteen
Speaker 4: seventies when I first started in this field, and this
Speaker 4: was something I had never encountered. A group of managers, executives, clerks,
Speaker 4: warehouse workers, truck drivers all walking out together in a
Speaker 4: non union setting. Uh. I had to think a lot
Speaker 4: about how to how to interpret this at the beginning
Speaker 4: and whether this, uh, whether this could.
Speaker 2: Last now it unfolded before your eyes. The business school, generally,
Speaker 2: I don't I don't think you have classes during the summer.
Speaker 2: I think it's a fall, winter, spring, and normally you
Speaker 2: get a chance to relax during the summer. When did
Speaker 2: you when did this first? Were you aware of this
Speaker 2: and attentive to it as it was bubbling up? And
Speaker 2: the fight, the the proxy fight that was going on
Speaker 2: in June which led to the to the to the nastiness.
Speaker 3: Of late June and July.
Speaker 4: Well, actually I didn't know anything about it until I
Speaker 4: got a call from an NPR reporter asking me what
Speaker 4: do I think about this? And I said about what,
Speaker 4: we have a nice little place up here in New
Speaker 4: Hampshire on a nice little lake, and I was, you know,
Speaker 4: minding my own business here and not paying attention to
Speaker 4: too many events. But this would have been about three
Speaker 4: days into it, and this reporter said, well, you better,
Speaker 4: you better check this out because I think you'll find
Speaker 4: it interesting. And then I want to call you back,
Speaker 4: and so I did. And so I was about three
Speaker 4: days into it when I first encountered it, and once
Speaker 4: I started to learn about what was happening and why
Speaker 4: it was unfolding, I just got absorbed by it. And
Speaker 4: then you know, once, as Dan as you know, once
Speaker 4: you speak to a media professional in one setting, whether
Speaker 4: it's radio or uh the print or TV, it it
Speaker 4: sort of multiplies and you you get more calls. And
Speaker 4: so that's where it starts. And were deeper into.
Speaker 2: It, I could say that you were sort of like
Speaker 2: those green flies professor from Sloan from Sloan talk to us, all,
Speaker 2: so let's.
Speaker 3: Get up there.
Speaker 4: Yeah, now it it had so I got a lot
Speaker 4: of media calls. But then as it unfolded, Uh, you know,
Speaker 4: I do mediation of labor management disputes, and I have
Speaker 4: a lot of experience with that, and I kept thinking,
Speaker 4: you a rule number one of a mediator is you
Speaker 4: don't intervene. You get asked by the parties to help them,
Speaker 4: so you don't butt in. And I was determined not
Speaker 4: to butt into anybody's business if I wasn't asked. But
Speaker 4: then I started to get discreet calls from some of
Speaker 4: the parties and from from others who asked, you know,
Speaker 4: what I thought, and how could we get get this resolved?
Speaker 4: And so then I started to do a little bit
Speaker 4: more work behind the scenes to try to understand it
Speaker 4: in more depth and to see how to interpret it.
Speaker 4: And then I wrote various pieces, one for the Boston Globe,
Speaker 4: actually two, I think it was for the Globe, and
Speaker 4: for Cognizanti the National Public Radio, you know, w b
Speaker 4: u R print outlet and and other things.
Speaker 2: And so they steal all they steal all those fancy
Speaker 2: Latin words like cogniscanti.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll give you a quarter if
Speaker 4: you can, right.
Speaker 2: I think I could Latin school. I taught me how
Speaker 2: to spell Latin words. But that's okay.
Speaker 3: Well, so you never.
Speaker 2: Entered as an arbitration or as a mediat or anything
Speaker 2: like that, but you began to do your homework and
Speaker 2: you eventually ended up co authoring a book about this.
Speaker 4: It's a case study. Yeah, and at one point I
Speaker 4: did write a piece for the Globe editorial page. This
Speaker 4: was about maybe three weeks into it, outlining what I
Speaker 4: felt needed to happen to get this resolve successfully. And
Speaker 4: you could see the the you know, the contours of
Speaker 4: what had to happen. The customers weren't going to come
Speaker 4: back unless the employees were going to come back. The
Speaker 4: employees weren't going to come back unless Arthur T came back.
Speaker 4: Arthur T wasn't going to get back unless there was
Speaker 4: some kind of a deal for him to have equity
Speaker 4: and take over the business. And that could have been
Speaker 4: done in a variety of different ways. So it was
Speaker 4: it was fairly straightforward to lay that out and and
Speaker 4: that's eventually essentially what happened is obviously is you know,
Speaker 4: eventually the board relented and sold the business to Arthur T.
Speaker 4: But it took a while for that process to play
Speaker 4: itself out. And meanwhile, what was so remarkable was that
Speaker 4: these employees held together for six weeks. And they held
Speaker 4: together largely because they all knew each other. But in addition,
Speaker 4: the most important development of this case was it was
Speaker 4: the customers. The customers were the source of power that
Speaker 4: kept the employees out there and support it at least psychologically.
Speaker 4: And finally it was the customers who brought the board
Speaker 4: to realize it's the only way we're going to resolve
Speaker 4: this is to put Arthur T back in charge in
Speaker 4: some fashion.
Speaker 2: What that's such a quick and brilliant analysis of how
Speaker 2: it actually came to be resolved. I got to take
Speaker 2: a break. I want to talk now about how this
Speaker 2: company has come back as a result of that six
Speaker 2: week into a little There was a lot of debt
Speaker 2: that piled up, and we to talk about that. Were
Speaker 2: the company is today as where it was ten years ago?
Speaker 2: And maybe we'll take some phone calls if you're going
Speaker 2: to stay with us until nine thirty. If a couple
Speaker 2: of folks would like to talk to a business Sloan
Speaker 2: Business School professor at MIT.
Speaker 3: They don't get any smarter than than these folks.
Speaker 2: Six one seven, four ten thirty, six one seven, nine thirty.
Speaker 3: My name is Dan Ray.
Speaker 2: After nine thirty, we'll talk about market Basket and we'll
Speaker 2: talk about your experience and were you one of those
Speaker 2: customers who stayed away? Were you one of those employees?
Speaker 2: But right now you can talk with Professor Thomas Cocan
Speaker 2: of MIT's Sloan Business School, which is one of the
Speaker 2: greatest business schools in the world, as well of course.
Speaker 3: As the country. Back on Night's Side right after these messages.
Speaker 1: Now back to Dan Ray live from the Window World
Speaker 1: Night Side Studios on WBZ News Radio.
Speaker 2: We're talking with Sloan Business School professor and MIT professor
Speaker 2: Thomas Colcan, and you had this was confusing because it
Speaker 2: was an interfamilial feud between two cousins. Arthur T was
Speaker 2: the the Demula's cousin that had all the support. Was
Speaker 2: that Arthur s was the other side of the aisle,
Speaker 2: as it were in this case.
Speaker 4: Yes, that's right, that's right.
Speaker 2: So what had Arthur T done to have won that
Speaker 2: such support not only of his workers, his non union workers,
Speaker 2: but also of his customers.
Speaker 4: Well, this is another really important to mention to the
Speaker 4: story and to the lessons to learn from it, and
Speaker 4: that is that Arthur T, over the course of many years,
Speaker 4: had demonstrated his commitment to really being responsive to his
Speaker 4: employees and his customers, concerned about them on a personal level,
Speaker 4: certainly on a professional level, to retain employees. As you know,
Speaker 4: when you shop at market Basket, it will each employee
Speaker 4: will have a little uh signet, little piece of his
Speaker 4: or her uniform that says, I'm Sue, I've been here
Speaker 4: twenty seven years or ten years or six months for
Speaker 4: that month. And you know, he valued employees and he
Speaker 4: knew that employees were key to providing high quality service
Speaker 4: to customers, and he held them accountable for doing that.
Speaker 4: But he supported them in times of crisis. The stories
Speaker 4: that I heard from various people who contacted me during
Speaker 4: that period of time about, you know, the things he
Speaker 4: did to support people when they lost the loved one
Speaker 4: or in a car accident, needed a child, needed a
Speaker 4: special care, and he called the parents and said do
Speaker 4: we need to move this child to Boston to one
Speaker 4: of the hospitals. He didn't say do you need to move?
Speaker 4: He said do we need to do it? And that's
Speaker 4: just one example of his leadership. And so he ran
Speaker 4: the company and was actively involved and worked his way
Speaker 4: up over the years from all the different jobs in
Speaker 4: the store to the CEO's role. Arthur s really was
Speaker 4: interested only for financial reasons. As the story goes, he
Speaker 4: worked a little bit there when he was a teenager,
Speaker 4: wasn't particularly committed and and really was only interested in
Speaker 4: the returns that the business was provided. So that's that's
Speaker 4: the basis, UH for the difference.
Speaker 2: My producer, excuse my producer told me that during this, uh,
Speaker 2: this six week period, and I'm relying upon my producer
Speaker 2: has a pretty good memory. He said that that that
Speaker 2: that Arthur s or that the people who at that
Speaker 2: point were holding full they still ran the company. And
Speaker 2: Arthur T was on the outside that they ran a
Speaker 2: four percent off your bill sale your entire bill as
Speaker 2: as an incentive, an inducement to have customers come back.
Speaker 2: And and even that offer, uh was not enough to
Speaker 2: lure customers back into the store. I'm again, I hope
Speaker 2: my producers correct on this, but is that true?
Speaker 4: Yeah? That was one that was one of the things
Speaker 4: they did. They hired also two new executives to run
Speaker 4: the company, experienced in the in the retail sector, not
Speaker 4: incompetent people, but they couldn't build the support needed to
Speaker 4: get the employees back. And you can offer four percent
Speaker 4: off the bill, but if you don't have anything in
Speaker 4: the store to sell, that doesn't do any good. And
Speaker 4: it was the coalition between the customers and the employees
Speaker 4: that allowed them to be out there for that long
Speaker 4: and to be successful in the end, and there was
Speaker 4: no financial incentive to bring customers back that was going
Speaker 4: to work. Those customers said, you know that's my store.
Speaker 4: I know those employees. I see them when I go there.
Speaker 4: They greet me, and you know, we ask about each
Speaker 4: other's family. You can't you can't incentivize your way out
Speaker 4: of that that kind of relationship.
Speaker 3: This, I bet you you probably have taught a course
Speaker 3: on this in MT.
Speaker 4: I suspect yes. In fact, we did a symposium one
Speaker 4: evening with a group of people and I brought in
Speaker 4: four or five of my colleagues from other parts of
Speaker 4: the Sloan School and the Kennedy School who specialized in
Speaker 4: different things from corporate governance to finance, to marketing and
Speaker 4: so on, for them to be on panels and to
Speaker 4: ask them what they thought of this. And it was
Speaker 4: really interesting because they obviously weren't as familiar, but they
Speaker 4: got it and they understood once they read a little
Speaker 4: bit about did their preparation for that evening, why this
Speaker 4: uh one was very unique and too, why it could
Speaker 4: be successful and and Dan, you know what this this
Speaker 4: really signified to me and to them, this is the
Speaker 4: kind of company that the American public is so thirsty
Speaker 4: for a good company, a company that's good to your customers,
Speaker 4: that gives fair prices, low prices, high quality, and good
Speaker 4: to its employees. And we just don't see enough of
Speaker 4: that across the country. And when we see it, or
Speaker 4: when the public sees it, they say, boy, that sounds
Speaker 4: right to me, and I ought to support that. So
Speaker 4: we need we need to learn from that.
Speaker 2: Why are companies, other companies not learning from that?
Speaker 4: Because they're they're financial institutions and they're they're they're they're
Speaker 4: in the maximize shareholder returns, sometimes short term, sometimes long term,
Speaker 4: but they're not There's not enough companies that see themselves
Speaker 4: as getting a good return by being a very very
Speaker 4: good high what we call high road employer. And we
Speaker 4: need more of those. We still need them today. I
Speaker 4: still teach when I when I write things I draw
Speaker 4: on market basket. I was asked to write something just
Speaker 4: this week about it, and so it resonates with the
Speaker 4: public and when you see it, you know that you
Speaker 4: should support it.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah.
Speaker 2: Sadly, Oftentimes, in my experience, the best companies of the
Speaker 2: companies that go out of business, and a lot of
Speaker 2: the bad companies.
Speaker 3: Hang on, let me.
Speaker 2: Grab a quick phone call for you here, so we'll
Speaker 2: get one question from our from our another studio audience,
Speaker 2: from our audience at large. I'm going to go to Gary,
Speaker 2: who checks in from Wuburn. Gary, you're on with Professor
Speaker 2: Thomas Kocher.
Speaker 5: Go right ahead, Gary, Yes, Professor, I'm sixty one years
Speaker 5: of age. I've said this separate story before. I don't
Speaker 5: necessarily have a question.
Speaker 4: But you probably know about it.
Speaker 5: One of the greatest things that Macabasket ever did. This
Speaker 5: is going to sound very unusual, Dan, and it's the truth.
Speaker 5: They did one month where all the bread was half
Speaker 5: price for the whole month of December during the holidays.
Speaker 5: Give it take eight years ago, give it take fifteen
Speaker 5: years ago. And I jumped all over it because I'm
Speaker 5: a single guy. I have all kinds of friends, and
Speaker 5: I distributed to all kinds of families. And I'm sure
Speaker 5: you know about it. And I was spending one hundred
Speaker 5: dollars a week, four dollars for then cut down the
Speaker 5: two and I'm very proud of it. I just wanted
Speaker 5: to share that story with you guys.
Speaker 4: Continue on, Thank you, Okay.
Speaker 3: I was going to tell you that they did that.
Speaker 3: Did they do that? Professor?
Speaker 4: If you know, not news to me, but I wouldn't
Speaker 4: be surprised, gotcha?
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, Well again, this is the company that is successful,
Speaker 2: as I understand that and helped me out if I'm wrong.
Speaker 3: Here is Arthur T.
Speaker 1: Still at the helm, Yes he is.
Speaker 4: And you know the financial deal that he put together
Speaker 4: is also worth coming on because my big fear in
Speaker 4: this is, yeah, they might sell it to Arthur T,
Speaker 4: but he's got to come up with the finance. He he
Speaker 4: doesn't have the dollars in his piggy bank, so he's
Speaker 4: got to find he's going to have to go into debt.
Speaker 4: And my biggest fear is he'd go with some forgive
Speaker 4: me for this word, schlock private equity firm that would
Speaker 4: be would put all kinds of constraints on him, start
Speaker 4: to put pressure on him to pay that money back
Speaker 4: quickly and force them to find ways to cut cut costs.
Speaker 4: And and there is there was a private equity component
Speaker 4: to it. But the brilliance of that deal was the
Speaker 4: it was a consortium of banks that did two things. One,
Speaker 4: they understood the business model and why market Basket had
Speaker 4: been successful. And that it would take a while to
Speaker 4: get back. And two, they understood that Arthur t was
Speaker 4: the key to the business model, and they let him
Speaker 4: run it rather than put him on a short lease
Speaker 4: and require very short term returns. He's still not completely
Speaker 4: out of debt, but he's ahead of his payment schedule.
Speaker 4: He's close to completing that. And it gave him the
Speaker 4: time and the control to go back to his same
Speaker 4: management style and rebuild trust with his employees and his
Speaker 4: customers and keep all the other systems in place. That
Speaker 4: was remarkable. And I worried that the deal itself might
Speaker 4: be structured a way that would make it hard for
Speaker 4: him to do that. Turns out that he was able
Speaker 4: to continue the business model and his leadership style in
Speaker 4: the same way. And that's that's remarkable.
Speaker 2: Mind setting is there's been in a paydown the day
Speaker 2: I think the Globe story said, has been substantially paid down, and.
Speaker 4: The yeah, it's it's close and and so uh the
Speaker 4: business has come back. Uh and you still see you know,
Speaker 4: lots of traffic in the stores. You see low prices
Speaker 4: for sure, you see the quality of service. They're not
Speaker 4: short staff. There's staff there, and staff of all ages
Speaker 4: and nice diverse men and women, people of color, as
Speaker 4: as well as people who have been there for a
Speaker 4: long time, and then some some teenagers.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean he is, He's done it all and
Speaker 2: it's great that someone like yourself recognizes it and maybe
Speaker 2: that model can be followed by some other stores. You know,
Speaker 2: just real quickly, what drives me crazy about grocery stores now? Now,
Speaker 2: in order to get the break, not market basket. Market
Speaker 2: Basket you go in and you know you're always going
Speaker 2: to get a low price. But there is other stores,
Speaker 2: and one in particular is Shaws, which is owned by Albertson.
Speaker 2: They're big on digital coupons, so you have to find
Speaker 2: the newspaper then download the coupons, not paper coupons. Downlim
Speaker 2: digitally to a very confusing website, and half the time
Speaker 2: they work, half the time they don't. But it is
Speaker 2: so it is one of the most frustrating stores with
Speaker 2: which I've ever dealt with in my life. I don't
Speaker 2: know if you've done a study on that, but you
Speaker 2: may want to look at this as the antithesis to
Speaker 2: the success.
Speaker 3: Story of market Basket.
Speaker 2: Albertson is going to get bought Shaws, and I think
Speaker 2: then in my.
Speaker 4: Opinion, see that that that's an example of not valuing
Speaker 4: your customers. Just think of the let's say elderly uh, grandmother,
Speaker 4: widow or man for that's matter, who doesn't have those
Speaker 4: digital skills. They're left out of that process or they're
Speaker 4: confused by it. If if if they need help while
Speaker 4: they're in the store to try to figure out where
Speaker 4: the best price for a particular brand of peanut butter
Speaker 4: or wherever it is, the store personnel will help them
Speaker 4: find that and they don't have to go to their
Speaker 4: their phone because they're not prepared to do that.
Speaker 3: And so actually got.
Speaker 2: To know your in this case, if it's not on
Speaker 2: your phone, you won't get the break that's the point.
Speaker 2: And so unless you're able to download it to the phone,
Speaker 2: which takes some time, and most people are just you're
Speaker 2: flum mixed by that. I'm pretty good digitally, but I
Speaker 2: finally give up and I just said to myself, you
Speaker 2: know what, I'll go to another store and buy what
Speaker 2: I want. They're driving customers away, mark my words. You
Speaker 2: see problems for Shaws, and you'll see problems for Albertson's,
Speaker 2: I promise you.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Kroger are about to try to merge. So then
Speaker 4: we've got a.
Speaker 3: Bigger problem we'll all have. There'd be one grocery store
Speaker 3: in America. That is.
Speaker 2: That's the downfall of capitalism as far as as far
Speaker 2: as I'm concerned, and I'm a big proponent of capitalism,
Speaker 2: but not capitalism that is abusive to its customers. Professor,
Speaker 2: thank you so much. Professor Thomas Coachin from the Sloan
Speaker 2: School at MIT, the Sloane School of Business Management. I
Speaker 2: really appreciate you taking the time tonight. I know that
Speaker 2: you're moving.
Speaker 4: Thank you, Dan. I really enjoyed it, and let's hope
Speaker 4: we can have more market basket like companies grow and
Speaker 4: thrive in the United States.
Speaker 2: I drive sometimes when i'm back home, fifteen miles just
Speaker 2: to go there and experience the atmosphere. I know I'll
Speaker 2: save a few bucks, but it's much more open, much
Speaker 2: better lit the aisles or wider all. It's just a
Speaker 2: much more positive experience. Thanks again, Professor. I look forward
Speaker 2: to talking to you again. Thank you so much.
Speaker 4: Good Thanks Dan, taking welcome all right.
Speaker 2: Now we've heard from Professor CoCom Now I want to
Speaker 2: hear from you. I want to hear your market Basket stories.
Speaker 2: Do you remember the summer of twenty fourteen. We're going
Speaker 2: to talk about this for a little while. This was
Speaker 2: an amazing time. I remember being on here talking about it,
Speaker 2: not really understanding the implications of it at the time,
Speaker 2: but now in retrospect, I do. I think the professor
Speaker 2: gave us a very good summary of it. Are you
Speaker 2: a market Basket market Basket customer? I suspect most of
Speaker 2: you are. Why what has continued to draw you to
Speaker 2: that store in you know, for so many years in
Speaker 2: place of other stores? I mean, there are other stores around,
Speaker 2: but market Basket seems to be number one with my audience.
Speaker 2: I'd love to hear from you. Six one seven two
Speaker 2: thirty six one seven, nine thirty. It's a Nightside with
Speaker 2: Dan Ray. Let's talk a little bit about your grocery bills.
Speaker 2: I know grocery bills have gone up, but you can
Speaker 2: cut them down at market Basket, I think, pretty effectively,
Speaker 2: with not a lot of aggravation in hassle.
Speaker 3: Back on Nightside right after.
Speaker 1: This, It's Night Side with Dan Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2: So we're talking about market Basket. We spoke with the
Speaker 2: professor business professor from the Sloan School of Business Management
Speaker 2: at MIT, Professor Thomas Coxon cocin Uh and uh, I
Speaker 2: want to hear your experiences. We're going to just start
Speaker 2: it off and see what people have to say. You're
Speaker 2: going to go first. Steve is in Groton, Massachusetts. Steve,
Speaker 2: do you have a market Basket up in your direction?
Speaker 2: I suspect you probably go ahead.
Speaker 6: Steve, Yeah, fifteen minutes away in Littleton, mass Not bad,
Speaker 6: not bad.
Speaker 2: Well, tell us are you a fan of market basket?
Speaker 2: You remember ten years ago? Tell us what your you remember?
Speaker 2: Your recollections are.
Speaker 6: I remember when they had the four percent sail when
Speaker 6: you talked about it. I didn't know. I didn't remember
Speaker 6: why they had that, But now it comes back to
Speaker 6: me where they had this thing shut down for a while,
Speaker 6: and I remember it was great because you go in
Speaker 6: there and you get the prices were great to begin with,
Speaker 6: and then they take another four percent off. It was fantastic. Yeah,
Speaker 6: and I continue to go. At the time, there wasn't
Speaker 6: this store in little Bit. It's one of the newer ones.
Speaker 6: They opened that one up in Lilton. It's beautiful, it's big,
Speaker 6: it's got you know, the huge selection, the prices are
Speaker 6: great and like the gentlemen you had there. They you
Speaker 6: could tell the employees are well taken care of. The
Speaker 6: respect is they've worked there for eons when you can
Speaker 6: see them a little badge of how many years they've
Speaker 6: been there. You see the same faces all the time,
Speaker 6: and they take care of the customers. You ask them
Speaker 6: where something is, they will walk you there. You have
Speaker 6: a problem with a product, they will give you the refund,
Speaker 6: no question to ask. There's just never any problems there.
Speaker 2: It's the way it should be, you know. And why
Speaker 2: other supermarkets have not followed that same model because you
Speaker 2: can't copyright or patent the way here you treat customers.
Speaker 2: You would think that the executives of some of these
Speaker 2: other supermarkets would go to market Basket and just observe,
Speaker 2: just observe, and take some of the practices back to
Speaker 2: their stores and make them much more consumer Freederve do
Speaker 2: you go exclusively to market Basket or U cason go
Speaker 2: to other grocery stores.
Speaker 7: I do.
Speaker 6: There's a Shaws it's a little bit closer, and I
Speaker 6: go there very rarely to because we have a couple
Speaker 6: of items that I cannot get a market Basket. But
Speaker 6: I will say that during the height of COVID, I
Speaker 6: didn't want to be in market Basket because there were
Speaker 6: too many people there. I would go to Shaws deliberately
Speaker 6: because there was hardly anybody's shopping in there, and it
Speaker 6: was safer because of that.
Speaker 2: That that comes back to the old Yogi Barra quote
Speaker 2: when he's saying, nobody goes to that restaurant because it's
Speaker 2: too crowded, right, or.
Speaker 6: What I would want to I wanted to want to
Speaker 6: belong to a club that would have me as a member.
Speaker 3: I think that was March.
Speaker 5: I think something like that.
Speaker 2: It's like they asked Bara, what do you do when
Speaker 2: you come to the fork, to a fork in the road.
Speaker 3: He said, take it.
Speaker 2: Hey, I appreciate you.
Speaker 6: I just want at the top of you started with
Speaker 6: the other gentleman's like, are there any other companies besides
Speaker 6: market Basket, not not to the supermarkets? If I don't,
Speaker 6: you're right, But who else takes that kind of care
Speaker 6: with their employees and the public. They care a little
Speaker 6: bit less about the bottom line and a little bit
Speaker 6: more about their you know, their legacy. And I can't
Speaker 6: think of really many companies at all like that.
Speaker 2: Well, I can't either, But I do think that a supermarket,
Speaker 2: grocery chain or whatever you want to call it. You
Speaker 2: go in there and most people are buying twenty twenty
Speaker 2: five items. Some of them are expensive, some of the
Speaker 2: are inexpensive. But when you go there and you have
Speaker 2: a list, like I tend to do, you want to
Speaker 2: make sure that everything on the list you pick up
Speaker 2: and in market basket, if you ask someone where it is,
Speaker 2: they will tell you. At other stores, if you ask,
Speaker 2: sometimes they look at you like, why are you asking
Speaker 2: me that question. It's like I can remember be in
Speaker 2: home Depot several times, several times. I'm not a fan
Speaker 2: of Home Depot at all, and you see someone with
Speaker 2: the orange apron and you say, excuse me, can you
Speaker 2: tell me where whatever? And they look at you with
Speaker 2: this quiz quizzical look in their face, like why would
Speaker 2: you ask me to ask? And my response, no, no, no,
Speaker 2: this is home Depot.
Speaker 6: And what I'll say, they will take you right, They
Speaker 6: will stop what they're doing. That's what they do, stop
Speaker 6: and talk like you. The customer is the priority. And
Speaker 6: that's just not the wers. I mean, that has to management.
Speaker 6: That is their style, that's what they want their employees to.
Speaker 2: Be But as they say, at some of these stores,
Speaker 2: and I mentioned the big orange box store, they'll look
Speaker 2: at you like, why are you asking me where something
Speaker 2: is in this store? I have no idea, and I
Speaker 2: simply say to the to the employee, gee, I'm sorry.
Speaker 2: I thought on my mistake. I thought you you worked here,
Speaker 2: and I'll just walk away.
Speaker 6: Right. Well, some of them could be new, but they
Speaker 6: don't train.
Speaker 7: Well that's not well.
Speaker 2: They certainly should have some idea of where things are
Speaker 2: before they finally put them on the floor.
Speaker 3: Steve loved the call. Thank you much. We'll talk soon.
Speaker 6: Thank you, thank you, thank.
Speaker 3: You very much. Okay, we're going to take a break.
Speaker 3: We got room.
Speaker 2: We get Galen, Lancaster, Dave and Barrington, New Hampshire, and
Speaker 2: Marie and Plymouth. You guys are going to get in,
Speaker 2: no questions asked. If there are other phone calls, we'll
Speaker 2: try to get them in and if not, we'll hold
Speaker 2: them over to ten six month sep after the ten
Speaker 2: six one, seven, two five, four, ten thirty six one
Speaker 2: seven nine three one ten thirty. I love this story
Speaker 2: because this, in my opinion, market basket is head and shoulders. Now,
Speaker 2: I know some of the employees at Shaws uh and
Speaker 2: at Shaws near where I live, and they are great people.
Speaker 2: They're great people. But the problem with in my opinion,
Speaker 2: with Shaws and Star Market is they force you to
Speaker 2: use their app, which is confusing on a on a
Speaker 2: good day, and it's overwhelming. And I know how to
Speaker 2: use apps, but it doesn't work for me, and I
Speaker 2: kind of imagine it works for too many people.
Speaker 3: Back on Night's Side right after.
Speaker 1: This, back to Dan Ray live from the Window World
Speaker 1: night Side Studios on WBZ News Radio.
Speaker 3: Off. Kay, let's get we got full lines. I like that.
Speaker 3: Let's go to Maria in Plymouth.
Speaker 2: Maria, welcome back your experience with market Basket.
Speaker 3: Over the years.
Speaker 8: Yes, Dan, I had a niece and a nephew who
Speaker 8: both worked from market Basket while they were in high school.
Speaker 8: And they both they both had to be trained there
Speaker 8: and it was like their first job. So they were
Speaker 8: taught like, you know, they had to dress up, you know,
Speaker 8: wear shirt tie when you came to work, and they
Speaker 8: were supposed to you know, greet the customers, and uh yeah,
Speaker 8: they they were. They were trained how to interact with people,
Speaker 8: not just you know, look out your phone or days
Speaker 8: off into space or whatever, and they and it really worked.
Speaker 8: And then they were also trained, you know, to to
Speaker 8: help them to be helpful.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 8: Now you go to others and people just look at
Speaker 8: you like, oh, really, you're bothering me?
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like here, I'm just putting my time in.
Speaker 2: I punched the clock. I can't wait till my shift
Speaker 2: is over.
Speaker 9: And that's yeah.
Speaker 8: And market Baskets showed appreciation even to these young teenagers.
Speaker 8: They were very surprised when at Christmas time they got
Speaker 8: like bonus at Christmas bonus, which for part time high
Speaker 8: schoolers was kind of just amazing. I mean, they were
Speaker 8: so excited about it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's the old it's better to give an
Speaker 2: employee a pat in the back than a kick in
Speaker 2: the butt.
Speaker 3: Sometimes they might need a kick.
Speaker 2: In the butt, but but also mix that in with
Speaker 2: some pats in the back and say, hey, you know
Speaker 2: that way they learn, Oh gee, you like it's you know,
Speaker 2: they say, you you, you come in your house and
Speaker 2: your dog comes up to your wagon, your tail. If
Speaker 2: you ignore the dog, the dog is going to say,
Speaker 2: why am I so excited about this guy coming home?
Speaker 2: But if you give him a pet and you roll
Speaker 2: on the floor with a little with that that dog
Speaker 2: for five minutes. The next time you come in, they'll
Speaker 2: be just as excited.
Speaker 3: To see you.
Speaker 8: Very true, and you're spot on about Shaws shows is
Speaker 8: the most annoying. And they were supposed to have updated
Speaker 8: their brand new app, was supposed to be easier to use.
Speaker 5: It's worse.
Speaker 3: It's absolutely worse.
Speaker 2: It's actually, as a matter of fact, every time, look,
Speaker 2: I'm I'm unfortunately very far from a market basket where
Speaker 2: I am this summer, but I can't wait to get
Speaker 2: back a little closer to a to a market basket there.
Speaker 2: And again I'm I'm not being paid to advertise market basket.
Speaker 2: I'm just telling you what my real reality, real experience
Speaker 2: has been. And there's a store I like, Roach Brothers.
Speaker 2: I have a Roach Brothers in West Roxby, near where
Speaker 2: I live in. There's good quality, but Roach Brothers is
Speaker 2: a little pricier than market Basket. You can find some
Speaker 2: sales in Roach Brothers and People and Rich Brothers are
Speaker 2: pretty nice too, But for me, the bottom of the
Speaker 2: list is still Shaws and Stars.
Speaker 7: Well, I do all these too, but Shaws. I only
Speaker 7: go there when i'm I'm desperate, or or when I'm
Speaker 7: in a hurry because you can get in and now
Speaker 7: there aren't as many people there.
Speaker 3: I hear you. Thanks Marie, we'll talk so appreciate you call. Great.
Speaker 5: Thank you, all right, you too.
Speaker 2: Let me go to Gail in Lancaster. I might have
Speaker 2: just indevertently clicked off.
Speaker 3: Sandy. Uh, Sandy.
Speaker 2: If you got click clicked off, call back and we
Speaker 2: will push you right at the top of the queue. Oh, Rob,
Speaker 2: tell me I hit the wrong one. This is Gail
Speaker 2: in Lancaster. Hi, Gail, how are you? Hi?
Speaker 9: Hi?
Speaker 2: Dan.
Speaker 9: The first time I ever called your show was about
Speaker 9: the market basket crisis, and I was very worried about it.
Speaker 9: That was, you know, when it was going on, and
Speaker 9: I was worried that we would lose twenty five thousand
Speaker 9: jobs in New England, and you know, there was some
Speaker 9: real concern that this would be the undoing of the
Speaker 9: company and so forth. And I was thinking, I was
Speaker 9: actually writing an article and I was going to try
Speaker 9: to get it published in the Globe. I don't have
Speaker 9: a specialty in label law or anything like that, but
Speaker 9: I just I was moved.
Speaker 5: To do it.
Speaker 9: And then I said, you know why, don't I just
Speaker 9: call that guy Dan Ray's show and I just say
Speaker 9: what I have to say on his show, and it
Speaker 9: might be more effective. And so you know, I got
Speaker 9: cracked up and I said what I had to say.
Speaker 9: Now it's interesting, I do think. I mean, it's a
Speaker 9: wonderful business model. And the man appears to have a
Speaker 9: vision where he's not. He keeps his bottom line sufficient,
Speaker 9: but has an eye flo really general good. And then
Speaker 9: and he's a real leader. I mean he has the
Speaker 9: to forgive me Tip O'Neil like qualities. I mean, I
Speaker 9: have stories from people.
Speaker 2: I was talking tonight, by the way, just Tip O'Neil.
Speaker 2: I was talking his son to me on the other
Speaker 2: former lieutenant governor. He and I were at a fundraiser locally.
Speaker 4: He's a great guy.
Speaker 9: I mean, I know Temmy and I've met him, a
Speaker 9: wonderful person.
Speaker 4: Like.
Speaker 2: We're as always very very helpful and friendly as tip boys.
Speaker 6: And oh yeah, wonderful.
Speaker 9: I mean the unique individuals and I think that excuse me,
Speaker 9: that Artie t and possesses those qualities a real leadership.
Speaker 9: I mean, I know one guy who works at a
Speaker 9: very nice restaurant in Harvard Square who's like a matre
Speaker 9: d and he told me that already tea the moves.
Speaker 9: He said, Arty T personally trained me to stack potatoes.
Speaker 9: You know people have stories like that.
Speaker 3: That's great.
Speaker 2: I've never met, to the best of my knowledge, Artt,
Speaker 2: never had him on the show, but I just from
Speaker 2: Afar and as a simply as a as a grocery
Speaker 2: store customer, I feel I've benef benefited from being a
Speaker 2: customer whenever I have the opportunity at market Basket.
Speaker 4: So well, I think he might make a great guest. Yeah,
Speaker 4: maybe I don't know the GUI.
Speaker 2: But yeah, he doesn't seem to be somebody who's a
Speaker 2: media hound or anything like that.
Speaker 3: So wow, you got to make your calls.
Speaker 2: I know that you've called more than than just twice,
Speaker 2: but call more frequently.
Speaker 3: I really enjoyed your conversation.
Speaker 9: Oh thanks very much, mana, thank you, thanks so much.
Speaker 2: Okay, we're gonna stick with this into the next hour
Speaker 2: a little bit. I'm gonna get to Beverly and Dave
Speaker 2: and Sandy and conquered. I inadvertently clicked you off. If
Speaker 2: you're still listening, call back and we'll we'll get you
Speaker 2: to the head of the queue.
Speaker 3: Here comes the news.
Speaker 2: I've got open line one line at six one seven, two,
Speaker 2: five four ten thirty one line and at six one
Speaker 2: seven two lines at six one seven, nine three, one,
Speaker 2: ten thirty. The question is, are you a market Basket fan?
Speaker 2: And if you want to tell me what store could
Speaker 2: be better, could improve you know what I think.
Speaker 3: I'd let to know what you think back on nightside