It was about a year ago, as I was paying for fuel at Kwik Trip, that the clerk handed me my change and said, “See you next time.”

It was, I thought, the perfect phrase. Friendly, without being insincerely chummy. And it’s psychological gold — the clerk implying she will, of course, see me again because they do such a great job at taking care of their customers.

After stopping at other Kwik Trips and hearing the same phrase, I realized it wasn’t the invention of the clerk, but a company-sponsored policy.

It is a hint of the genius that is Kwik Trip, one of the nation’s most successful and fast-growing retailers.

The company has 402 stores in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa (where they are known as Kwik Star). They employ 9,300 people and will add about 20 stores and 1,000 employees this year.    

“Not bad in a recession,” said John McHugh, corporate communications director for the La Crosse-based company.

I interview a lot of business executives, and they will always attribute whatever success their business has to the quality of their employees. Some of them mean it. They not only value their employees as workers but go out of their way to help, motivate, reward and empower them through good times and bad.

But — if you look a bit deeper and talk to employees — you find too many of the bosses are just paying lip service to the idea they truly value and motivate their employees.

Kwik Trip brings the concept of employees as true partners to a new level.

The company gives 40 percent of pre-tax profits back to employees. Every full-time and part-time worker got a 13 percent cash bonus (based on their salary) last year. The company puts 6.2 percent into every employee’s 401(k), whether the employee matches any of it or not.

Full-time employees, after five years, also get a piece of ownership in the Kwik Trip land and stores. An employee who started in 1989 and retired today would get about $57,000 in cash just from their real-estate interest.  

The result: Their employee turnover rate is 26 percent, unheard of in retail. At Kwik Trip’s main office, turnover is 1 percent.

The tone for the company, McHugh says, is set by CEO Don Zietlow, whose family has long owned the company.

“He’ll say our purpose is to take care of customers, and No. 2 is that he and his family will take care of us as co-workers. It’s a simple philosophy, but not everyone does that.”

Zietlow’s business acumen and attention to what customers want and employees appreciated is legendary. 

To watch quality and keep prices lower, Kwik Trip owns and operates its own dairy, commissary for making pizzas and sandwiches, its own bakery, its own transportation fleet and even its own ice plant.

“We can sell it cheaper than most grocery stores because we’re making it and delivering it,” McHugh says.

While convenience stores traditionally profited by selling commodities at premium prices to impulse buyers, Kwik Trip aims for selling good quality foods and staples at competitive prices.

“People are going to run out of milk and eggs and onions during the week, and we want them to come here and know they’re not going to get gouged,” McHugh says.

The company’s eye to success starts with the locations they pick — usually corner sites in high traffic areas that are easy to get in and out of. After building a store in La Crosse, they noticed that people going to work in the morning would turn right, directly into their store, but on the way home from work they were hesitant to turn left across traffic to get to the Kwik Trip.

The solution: “We built another one directly across the street,” McHugh says.



Tim Krohn is a Free Press staff writer. He can be contacted at 344-6383 or tkrohn@mankatofreepress.com.