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Nicholas Lee
Professor Murray
ENC 1102
10 October 2014
Customer Service, the True Value of Publix
The discourse community I am currently researching is Publix. Publix is a supermarket
that strives to be the premier quality food retailer in the world (Publix Handbook 12). Publix
preaches to its associates to put the customer first and do anything in your power to make sure
you meet or exceed their expectations. Publix believes that the mentality of customers first will
be the driving force of the growth of the company. What differentiates Publix from other grocery
stores is the tremendous amount of value they put in their customers. Publix has many
departments ranging from customer service, bakery, and produce to name a few. Each
department is different in the role it carries in the discourse community, but they all have the
common goal of fulfilling the customers needs through excellent customer service.
Swales states that in order to identify a group of people as a discourse community, it must
have a common set of goals, mechanism of intercommunication between its members, use
participatory mechanisms to provide information and feedback, possess one or more genres in
the communicative furtherance of its aims, have a specific lexis, and contain a threshold level of
members with a suitable degree of relevant content and discoursal expertise (Swales 220-222).
According to these criteria, Publix fits the description of a discourse community perfectly.
What Publix says about Customer Service
To begin with, a primary source I used for my research is called the Associate
Handbook. It is a handbook given to all associates when they are first hired and basically a go-to

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guide when it comes to anything an associate is involved with in Publix. Particularly for my
research, I will be focusing mainly on the customer service section of the handbook. The role of
this handbook is to connect all the associates working for Publix by making sure they know how
to serve customers in the Publix way. A heading titled Our Mission Statement discusses how
Publix plans on achieving its goal of becoming the premier quality food retailer in the world. It
states that Publix is committed to be passionately focused on customer value (Publix
Handbook 12). The handbook describes that Publix expects all associates to commit themselves
to provide friendly and helpful service, keep our stores and facilities clean, recognize the highest
level of social standards, and to be fair and honest with everyone (Publix Handbook 13). The
handbook deeply stresses how important customer service is to Publix.
An interview with Customer Service manager, Tim Freebern, of Publix store #1428
supports the importance Publix stresses on the role of Customer Service in the company.
Freebern has been affiliated with Publix for over 12 years starting as a front service clerk,
which is the professional name for a grocery bagger, and is currently a Customer Service
manager that is in charge of everyone in the Customer Service department. Freebern strongly
advocates the role of Customer Service to all of his associates and believes that it is the main
reason for Publixs success. In the interview, Freebern explains why Customer Service is
effective by stating it is what separates Publix from its competition and that quality prices and
products can only get a company so far (Freebern). Freebern also explained that he works
alongside his associates to make them aware that he is passionate about customer service as he
says he is. Another important aspect of the interview is the answer Freebern gives to the question
Why is customer service so important to Publix? He refers to the founder of Publix, George
Jenkins, and states that he did a great job in instilling a servants mentality into all of his

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associates (Freebern). The interview with Freebern shows how strongly Publix believes in
customer service to be the driving force for its success.
Discourse found on Publixs home page named Associate Applause is dedicated to
applaud Publix associates who have gone above and beyond with customer and associates
(Associate Applause). Publix updates the page throughout the year and goes in depth of what
the associate did to provide excellent customer service. Many entries for associate applause are
actual customers who describe incidents where an associate showcased the Publix way of
service. The latest entry from October 2014 describes an incident where an elderly handicap cop
accidently ran his hurt knee into a metal pole while shopping in Publix that caused him intense
pain. The cop stated that shortly after this incident, he was assisted by multiple associates that
provided him an ice pack, helped him shop, and load his groceries into his car (Associate
Applause). He then concluded the entry by stating that he will always be grateful and a loyal
Publix customer because his experience with Publixs customer service. The source Associate
Applause gives the impression to both customers and associates that Publix prioritizes customer
service in every aspect of its company.
Another article found on Publixs home page titled Code of Ethics serves as a reminder
of the vales of Publix, particularly Customer Service, to all of its associates. Personally, as an
associate of Publix store #1428 where I am employed, the Code of Ethics is found at every cash
register and the break room as well. The purpose of doing so is to keep every associate focused
on prioritizing Customer Service. The Code of Ethics quotes that customers are the reason we
[Publix] exist and we are passionately focused on customer value and must deliver quality
products and premier service at a fair price (Code of Ethics, 2). The articles role is promote the
philosophy of premier Customer Service at all times. The Code of Ethics is related to the

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primary source of the personal interview conducted with Freebern because it describes the
foundation of Publixs values and what Freebern preaches to his associates.
Is Customer Service Effective?
While Publix achieves its goals by prioritizing customer service, another side of the
conversation within the discourse community is whether or not it is necessary or effective for a
companys success. A secondary source studied in the research is an article by Eric Chemi titled
Proof it pays to be Americas most-hated companies. The article includes a study that scores
major companies on a 100-point scale for customer satisfaction by using the American
Customer Satisfaction Index, which is regarded as a standard. The study further filtered the list
of companies by including only publicly traded companies with at least one full year of trading
data to allow a comparison between 2013 stock market returns and customer-satisfaction
rankings of 146 companies (Chemi, 4). The results show that the customer service scores
actually have a negative correlation with stock market returns which suggests that the mosthated companies perform better than the companies that are considered ones that are loved
(Chemi, 5). The study also states that in terms of revenue, which most companies base their
success on, negative customer service really doesnt matter to most companies, and that if
anything it could hurt the companys profits to spend money making customers happy. Contrary
to what Publix believes in, data from this study shows that customer service isnt an important
factor to the companys success.
While Chemis study is broad in terms of the field of its study, meaning that it didnt
entirely focus on the supermarket field that Publix is a part of, another study done by Sivapalan
Achchuthan asseses the retail service quality in Sri Lankan supermarkets. The study
acknowledges that service quality has become one of the major determinants of customer

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satisfaction and attempts to measure the consumers perception on retail service quality and its
impact on customers satisfaction in supermarkets in Sri Lanka (Achchutan, 5). The results of
the study show that customer satisfaction among supermarkets in Sri Lanka is significantly
influenced by the retail service quality and that customer perception towards employees
knowledge and behavior, prompt service, individual attention, and complaint handling is in the
highest level among the retail customers in Sri Lanka (Achchutan, 7). This supports Publixs
value of promoting excellence in customer service to their associates.
WKMG, a major local news department located in Orlando, conducted a study that
compared five major retail companies prominent in the area. The five included in the research
were Publix, Walmart, Target, Lowes and Home Depot. The study involved a member of the
news crew that had a hidden camera to go to each store at five different locations and time how
long it took an associate to meaningfully help him and not just a simple greeting. Each of the five
retail companies were scored on the how long it took a customer to meaningfully help and
engage with him, the customer; the longer the time, the worse the score and vice versa. The
results proved Home Depot, Publix, and Lowes to have the best times, while Walmart1 and
Target seemed to score way below. The results of the study are ironic because according to the
Fortune 500 of top companies of 2014, Wal-Mart leads the nation in the company with the most
revenue with Home Depot trailing with a rank of 33, then Target with a rank of 36, Publix with a
rank of 104 and lastly, Lowes not making it in the list of top 500 companies (Fortune 500). This
supports the idea of Customer Service not being an important factor of a companys success
based upon revenue.
Conclusion

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While Publix stresses customer service in all aspects of the company, studies discuss
whether or not it is effective in terms of success for the company. Sources are connected based
on What Publix say about Customer Service and the argument of whether or not Customer
Service is effective. Data from the studies both support and go against Publixs ideology of
prioritizing Customer Service. This focused data analysis allowed me to see the various
connections between the sources I chose for the research of my discourse community, Publix.
The intended audience for this data analysis is anyone interested in the effectiveness of Customer
Service, primarily in the field of retail.

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Work Cited
Associate Applause. Publix. Publix Asset Management, 2014. Web. 29 Oct. 2014.
Chemi, Eric. "Proof That It Pays to Be America's Most-Hated Companies."Bloomberg Business
Week. Bloomberg, 17 Dec. 2013. OneSearch. Web. 19 Oct. 2014.
Freebern, Tim. Personal Interview. 20 Sept. 2014.
Ushantha, Chanaka, A.W. Wijeratne, and S. Achchuthan. "An Assessment of Retail Service
Quality: An Empirical Study of the RSQS in Sri Lankan Supermarkets." Developing
Country Studies 4.3 (2014): 78-90. International Sharing Platform. 8 Mar. 2014.
OneSearch. Web. 19 Oct. 2014.
Your Associate Handbook. Florida: Publix Asset Management, 2014. Print.
"Fortune 500 2014." Fortune 500. Fortune, n.d. Web. 20 Oct. 2014.
Cooper, Steven. "Customer Service under the Microscope." WKMG. Click Orlando, 13 May
2013. OneSearch. Web. 19 Oct. 2014.