In an episode of the official Trader Joe's podcast, Inside Trader Joe's, the company's president and CEO were confronted with a longstanding rumor that employees are encouraged to get really friendly with customers.
Co-hosts Tara Miller and Matt Sloan welcomed President Jon Basalone and CEO Bryan Palbaum to talk about the company, and they directly addressed a rumor (or perhaps even a conspiracy theory) that employees flirt with customers. "Definitively, no," Palbaum said. "I think we just have such a unique environment in our stores that, to go into a Trader Joe's store and feel that everyone is genuinely interested in whether or not you are having a good day, compared to maybe other retailers, I could see how that might be misinterpreted.”
Basalone agreed with Palbaum's assessment and added that their employees don't flirt, they're just told to be nice to customers.
"Bryan's right," he shared. "I mean, you go through this world, and you run into so many people that aren't genuine, that aren't kind to you, that when you walk into a place when that's happening, it feels like, whoa, okay, I think they're flirting with me when actually, yeah, that's just what niceness feels like, you know?”
Elsewhere in the episode, they also addressed the rumor that self-checkouts will be coming to the stores nationwide. "That's false," said Palbaum. "That’s as false as false can be because we believe in people and we're not trying to get rid of our crew members for efficiency's sake or whatever the, I don't know what the reasons are people put self-checkout in," added Basalone. They also both said that they're not a fan of self-checkouts, because they're "not fun" and they consider them "work."
Listen to the full episode of Inside Trader Joe's below.