Tesco Galston

Source: Karen Simpson

Winner: Tesco Galston, East Ayrshire

Store manager: Eddie Murphy

Size: 25,000 sq ft

Market share: 43.9%

Nearest rivals: Asda - 4.8 miles, Iceland - 5.3 miles, Aldi - 5.4 miles, Lidl - 5.6 miles

Store data source: Analysis by CACI. Call the market planning group on 020 7602 6000

To what do you attribute your high service standards? Over the past year we have been really concentrating on how we can make the shopping trip ­easier for customers. We’ve had an action plan around cleanliness and tidiness in the store and the standards we provide every day. Tesco has always been market-leading for eliminating queues and we always make sure there is a colleague available that can help customers straight away.

Do customers miss the service counters you used to have? We had a fish counter, a deli counter and a hot deli. Undoubtedly there were customers at the beginning who asked why we took them out. I’ve been able to provide almost direct replacements for what they used to get on the counters so, for example, every line I carried on the fish counter I have within my meat, fish and poultry section and we’ve done the same lines in terms of cooked meat and cheese. Customers understood. Thanks to other vacancies in the store we were able to retain all the counter staff who are ­service superstars.

What part of your job do you like best? Walking the store and interacting with customers and colleagues. When I’m on the shop floor I enjoy listening to customers and seeing how we can be a good neighbour. We are located on the outskirts of Kilmarnock and we cater for about three villages. The community is really strong and we support local organisations.

Which section of the store is your favourite? Fresh foods, because our competitors don’t have a great fresh food offer. Our customers look for us to carry the same range as the big Extras, so where possible I’ll do all I can to cater for them and make sure customers do not need to travel to the bigger stores. Within my gift I will try to get as wide a range as possible and fresh foods is certainly an area I spend quite a bit of time on.