Personal shopper vs. professional caddie

I'm starting to see this huge divide opening between various geographic locations and their ability and desire to provide quality customer service. Places like Alameda, on the one hand, seem to be falling woefully behind in this department. I'm sure it falling down geographic lines has plenty to do with economics and the hiring pool from which store can pull. If you can'g get good ground level people, it's hard to build anyone into a good mid or upper level person. Sure, you can do some transplanting, but it never quite takes.

Anyway, the idea is for places to offer access to a personal shopper/ assistant to those who really want that kind of an experience. A chain like Safeway could have their own, while the smaller places may have to contract out. This person would be able to have a conversation with a customer, determine their needs, and then fulfill them. Now maybe that's just helping them find things, or getting them coffee, or simply being at their disposal. It could, I suppose, include advice on whatever items they were purchasing. This wouldn't have to cost a whole lot to the consumer, but you'd want to make them feel like there is value in their money spent.

Now I see this creating an even bigger divide where the folks who can afford such service are getting A+ customer service, where the people who cannot are still getting the C- service we've come to expect from a lot of the bigger stores in certain areas. The other negative is that you'd have to use your best employees for this, pulling them from the regular rotation and hurting your overall "general population" quality. So maybe thta C- becomes a D+ and the gap just gets wider.

The point is to give people an option. Do I want to accept what is available to me for free, or do I want to spend the money to get better? And once you've made that choice, and spent the dollar, then you get some say in how the services are rendered. Whereas if you pay nothing, you really can't complain.