Tossing any sexual harassment complications aside, Jack Mitchell, chief executive officer of Mitchells, the high-end clothier of Westport, CT, believes the key to success for store owners is to "hug" their customers and their workers.

"It's getting to know each person on a personalized, individual basis," Mr. Mitchell said last week to about 160 people under a tent at Stew Leonard's in Norwalk, CT, according to The News-Times. "Hugging is an absolute mind-set, trying to determine what's important to them."

Mr. Mitchell, who also owns Richards in Greenwich, CT, and Marshs in Huntington, L.I, is the author of Hug Your Customers (2003). According to a review on Amazon, the book "has nothing to do with being touchy-feely around them and everything to do with offering them over-the-top service." In 2008, his second book, Hug Your People, elaborated on how hiring, motivating and keeping great employees is a company's greatest asset.

As an example, Mr. Mitchell recalled that one time a customer called the store at 10 a.m. looking for two suits by 5 p.m. that day because he had to speak at a seminar in Switzerland. Debra Gampel, his regular sales associate, looked up his profile on the computer and had all the clothes he needed picked out before he arrived at the store. Later that day, the suits were delivered to his home, Mr. Mitchell said.

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