$ervice.

I have been coming to the land of the shopping mall,since the late 70s and always enjoy my time, especially when it comes to purchasing with a great exchange rate but more importantly with great service. My first trips were not about malls but about drinking and sporting events, travelling with friends and marvelling at the cheery faces greeting me from behind the bar. Cheery faces wrapped around home spun greetings of "have a nice day", "glad you could join us" and "I'll be your waiter tonight". All for $4.50 an hour and all seemingly plastic at the time.

I say at the time, because at home we hadn't bothered to go past G'day in the service industry and anything beyond seemed slightly sycophantic behaviour. As far as we were concerned, the product was the desired result and we weren't interested in wrapping it in any extra layers of service. Things change and decades later many of us find ourselves in service industries, competing for the same market and having long ago agreed the US is a bench mark. A bench mark created out of competitive necessity and a long instilled cultural norms surrounding service.

The $4.50 hourly rate still exists in the US and the jokes around working for that extra tip continue but nothing has changed regarding service and that's a good thing because all those years ago it wasn't plastic, we just hadn't caught up. The service mentality, especially in the retail sector, is an ingrained culture within the US and has become second nature. The fact that it exists at the lowest end of the pay scale extrapolates out to superb service at the top, that is only found in niche markets at the high end back home.

For many years, the jokes aimed at American tourists, coming to Australia demanding better service from restaurants and shops, showed our lack of intuition in matters surrounding a full product offering. No wonder they ended up building brand hotels where ever they travelled, at least they could take the service mentality they were used to, with them. As a callow youth travelling around the world, it never occurred to me, to listen and learn and take back lessons from the most competitive retail society on the planet and try and integrate them into my own businesses. It was more fun having a laugh at someone in a loud shirt wanting that extra bit of service because we were afraid to look into ourselves and know this was the future.

Service in the US is no longer attributed to that end of day, tip jar mentality, it is part and parcel of the offering of daily life and continues to be a bench mark. Travel around Europe for a while, you'll see service slide as you head south towards the Med, walk through one of our department stores over Christmas looking for some help or try and get a tradesman to show up on time. All indications there are still things to be learnt from the land of the dollar bill.