Having just returned home from a three-day trip to the Italian capital city of Rome where this year’s Shell Global Smiling Stars’ Retailer Awards event was hosted, Anne Simpson (Manager of Shell Mile & Quarter) and the husband and wife team of David & Heather Bynoe (Managers of Shell Banyans) were treated to a celebratory lunch by Sol Caribbean Limited.

Adjudged Shell Gold Retailers of the Year for 2010 from among dealers operating in Belize, Suriname, St. Vincent, St. Lucia, Grenada, and Guyana, the SOL EC winners were happy to have had the opportunity to network with retailers from around the world as well as interact with Shell Global representatives while in Rome.

Retail Operations Coordinator at Sol Caribbean Limited, Gale Weithers, noted that the two dealers chosen from Barbados were testament to their dedication to providing the highest level of service to their customers, and indicative of the concerted effort being made by Barbadian dealers to improve the island’s overall level of customer service.

“The main focus of our business is ensuring customer satisfaction at all of our sites, but we realise that we cannot do this without fully engaging our retailers and by extension their staff. We have therefore been working closely with our retail partners across all markets in striving to maintain the highest standards possible. It was therefore no surprise to learn that the theme for this year’s Shell Global ‘Smiling Stars’ Retailer Awards Event was: ‘Partners in Performance’ because this is what we are in reality.”

Designed to motivate and inspire retailers as well as sales staff to offer exceptional customer service, the customer programme initiative is a Shell Global incentive which utilises a series of internal and external site audits to measure the level of customer service being offered at every site, every day.

Retailers participating in the programme are asked to demonstrate the highest levels of customer service satisfaction, in addition to other criteria, for a period of 12 months. At the end of the year, all dealers with the two highest scores from each represented territory are rewarded for their commendable performance with a fully expense paid trip to an exotic location.

Still excited from their recent trip, the focus however is now on getting to Cape Town in South Africa where the Gold Retail winners for 2011 will be hosted in May of 2012.