It is with great sadness that I report the death of Bob Johnson. The retail trainer and columnist died suddenly on Tuesday 17 March 2015.

After working for a brief period in print ad sales with News Limited in the late 1980s, Bob switched career trajectory to become a training consultant at the Centre for Retail & Wholesale Training Australia. Five years later, in 1995, Bob opened his own consultancy, Applied Retail Training.

That year, Appliance Retailer magazine was founded and Bob wrote the first of his retail training columns in our third issue, in December. From that issue through to the upcoming April 2015 issue, Bob has written in every magazine, and he is the writer to have appeared in the most issues of the magazine — 213 columns in total.

Throughout his training career, Bob took enormous pride in helping retailers, both big and small, reach their potential through outstanding customer service. He believed that while the customer was not always right, they should always be first; that spare time should be spent writing thank you notes; that mobile phones should be switched off during business hours; and that staff should always welcome complaining customers back into the store (for these are the ones giving you a chance to remedy the situation, rather than simply bad-mouthing you).

It was just last week, on Tuesday 10 March 2015, that I last spoke to Bob. He was calling from his home in the Hunter region, north of Sydney, to discuss his next column. The piece was about how to deal with angry customers and he was so passionate about this subject that he wanted to make sure I didn’t cut any of the words of this longer-than-normal piece.

“Cut out my photo before you edit the words,” he said.

It is a rare columnist that asks to have their photo-byline removed from an article but that was the nature of Bob: great customer service came before all else.

Unfortunately I never got the opportunity to see Bob give a demonstration or talk in situ but I heard many times from clients that he was an outstanding public speaker and a great motivator of staff, from the casual on the floor to the executive in the corner office. Those who knew Bob are welcome to leave tributes in the comments box below.

Bob Johnson’s funeral was held at North Chapel, Newcastle Memorial Park, Anderson Drive, Beresfield at 10am on Monday 23 March 2015.