Kadena family members attend Exhange Patriot Family focus group

  • Published
  • By Sgt. 1st Class Jon Cupp
  • Army and Air Force Exchange Service Pacific Region Public Affairs
Kadena Air Base family members took the opportunity to make their voices heard while attending the Army and Air Force Exchange Service's first Pacific Region Patriot Family focus group session at Camp Foster July 22.

The Exchange formed the focus group in coordination with garrison and wing commanders to gain insight and feedback from Exchange customers, specifically military spouses, about their Exchange shopping experience and also to discuss findings from the Exchange's recent Customer Service Index survey.

With the CSI survey, customers voice their opinions on such areas as customer service, pricing, sales associate availability, merchandise assortment and many more key issues.

"The Patriot Family group session is vital in gleaning feedback from our customers and helps us to see areas in which we can improve and make changes to better serve our military community," said Sgt. Maj. James A. Pigford, senior enlisted advisor for the Exchange's Pacific Region. "Efforts like these group sessions and CSI are critical to not only improving the shopping experience, but also bolstering the Morale, Welfare and Recreation dividend the Exchange annually delivers to the community as healthy exchange operations produce greater returns for military quality of life programs."

Exchange Pacific Region commander Col. Mark K. White began the session with some opening comments and then turned the meeting over to the Exchange's Senior Vice President for Softlines, Tammy Shelmire who participated in the meeting with other Exchange staff via teleconference from the Exchange's world headquarters in Dallas.

"We've heard what you've said with the CSI survey, and we would like to learn more from you to do a better job of meeting your needs and show you what our merchandising plans are," said Shelmire to the family members.

The Exchange's Chief Operating Officer Michael Howard, although unable to attend in person, addressed the audience through a pre-recorded message via streaming video from Dallas.

Family members also watched a video presentation explaining how the Exchange purchases and selects softlines merchandise -- merchandise which includes all clothing items, shoes, hats, gloves and jewelry among other products. During the presentation, Exchange associates spoke to family members about merchandise availability and pricing.

"We work directly with manufacturers to minimize transport costs to provide you with quality merchandise at highly competitive prices," said Shelmire, while also explaining that the Exchange observes trends to ensure they stay competitive and in tune with what their customers need and want.

During a questions and answer session, family members addressed a number of concerns that apply specifically to Okinawa to include assortments of maternity items at the Exchange, rain gear, sizes and selection in the women's and children's clothing departments, and increasing the selection of children's shoes and adult swimsuits among many other topics.

To address those concerns, Exchange leadership explained that the Kadena Exchange will be working to expand its selection of maternity items and improving on size, color and selection of clothing items.

In addition to this, the Kadena Exchange will be adding some concept shops in the future to its softline department which will provide a larger assortment of national brands to include ladies' Izod, a Dickie's shop, a Pink shop from Victoria's Secret and a Polo/Ralph Lauren shop.

Exchange leadership said feedback from the group session will be vital in implementing future changes to Exchange facilities and merchandise.

"We are definitely taking notes and sharing your feedback with us, helps us to improve," said Shelmire.

Family members who attended the group session said the meeting was worthwhile and enjoyed the opportunity to give feedback.

"It really feels like they do want to make improvements for us and for this particular meeting they focused specifically on us by pinpointing issues that relate to Okinawa and that was appreciated," said Rachel Bradley, a Kadena family member.

"This was great, especially the teleconference with the main Exchange headquarters [in Dallas], which allowed us to give direct input," added military spouse Penny Childers, echoing some of Bradley's sentiments.

After the group session, family members met with Exchange managers and senior leadership for a tour of the Kadena Exchange's softlines department.