Category: customer service
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Is your brand worth repairing, renewing, & re-selling to your customer?
On a recent tour of central London stores with some retail clients, they were amazed at how many brands offer repair services and are moving to ‘products for life’ mentalities. Finisterre, not for the first time, stands out as best practice in the world of product repairs. Firstly it offers the customer videos and manuals…
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Finisterre: Owning a responsibility to protect and share the ocean.
in branding & visual communication, customer service, customer-engagement, disruptive retail, ethical retailing, fabrics, in-store services, leisure & sport, meaning in the retail madness, pre-loved, product development, re-sell, recycling, renting, retail, retail brand heritage, retail businesses, retail management, retail organisations, retail strategy, secondhand, shop of the future, store experience, store theatre, supply-chains, sustainabilitySome brands sell products, whilst others sell passions. And in this consumer world of over-supply and product fatigue it finally seems that customers are being drawn to companies that were never really meant to be retailers at all. To call them ‘accidental retailers’ is really not fair, because in most cases they have developed assortments…
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2025: A year to safeguard your trust and keep your customers safe.
in assortment structure planning, branding & visual communication, brave-words, customer experience, customer service, customer-engagement, ethical retailing, food & drink, health & beauty, high street planning, in-store services, leisure & sport, location strategy, meaning in the retail madness, new retail, personalisation, retail, retail businesses, retail management, retail organisations, retail strategy, shop of the future, store experienceJanuary is not many people’s favourite month of the year, unless you work for a credit card business, I guess. But the start to 2025 has been a particularly bad one, with horrendous fires in Los Angeles and Ghana, and our own problems with flooding and storms closer to home. Of course, there are always…
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More Lush. More fun than ever!
in assortment structure planning, branding & visual communication, customer experience, customer service, customer-engagement, health & beauty, impulse retailing, in-store services, packaging, Pinterest Gallery, retail, retail businesses, retail management, retail strategy, shop of the future, space management, space planning, store experience, store layout, store theatre, telling product stories, visual merchandisingUntil last week my favourite and most fun shop experience would have been the Lush shop on Oxford Street. It isn’t anymore. It’s the new Lush shop on Longacre in Covent Garden! The new concept takes everything that has always been so special about the Oxford Street experience and has wrapped it up in a…
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Never Knowingly Underestimate John Lewis!
in branding & visual communication, customer experience, customer service, customer-engagement, in-store services, multi-category, omni-channel retailing, pop-up stores, retail, retail brand heritage, retail management, retail organisations, retail strategy, sales promotions & events, store experience, store theatreI’m not the only one to be impressed by the new John Lewis Christmas adverts. They are certainly a ‘nod’ backwards to their Christmas campaign peak years, a decade or so ago, but they also signal an exciting shift in strategy, and a bright future for this most trusted of brands. Listen to what I…
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Body Shop: Seeking a change in fortune for this rough-cut diamond
in branding & visual communication, brave-words, customer experience, customer service, customer-engagement, disruptive retail, ethical retailing, health & beauty, impulse retailing, in-store services, packaging, product suppliers, recycling, retail, retail brand heritage, retail businesses, retail management, retail organisations, retail strategy, store theatre, sustainability, telling product storiesWhere do you begin with the story of Body Shop. So many twists and turns, and so many lessons. Anyone who remembers the 1980s and 1990s experienced a totally new retail concept. Body Shop was way ahead of its time in the world of conscientious cosmetics and toiletries. It was primarily a producer, ensuring that…
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Trust M&S to be ‘Positively Dissatisfied!’
in assortment structure planning, branding & visual communication, customer experience, customer service, customer-engagement, disruptive retail, fashion accessories, food & drink, home, ladies fashion, multi-category, omni-channel retailing, retail, retail brand heritage, retail businesses, retail management, retail organisations, retail strategy, store experience, store operationsI remember this story from the halcyon days of M&S. That when customers bought food from M&S and it didn’t taste amazing, they immediately thought their cooker was not working properly and called an engineer. Of course this may well be folklore. However it does illustrate the level of trust that M&S commanded, and it…
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Time for us to create our own certainty in this world of retail uncertainty.
If there has always been one certainty in the retail industry, then it is uncertainty. We deal with customers who are unpredictable. We forward guess every season in terms of what we should stock in the hope we can sell it. We are at the mercy of the weather, the geo-politics of the world and…
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Where is your sales growth going to come from this year?
in assortment structure planning, branding & visual communication, customer experience, customer service, customer-engagement, ethical retailing, food & drink, health & beauty, in-store services, meaning in the retail madness, personalisation, retail, retail businesses, retail management, retail organisations, retail strategy, social savvy, store theatre, sustainability, telling product storiesWe are already in autumn, an important time of year for planning the commercial growth of our retail businesses. We may be considering extending our assortments, planning new product ranges, growing our human resources, even contemplating opening new physical shops and online sales channels. Growth can come in many ways to achieve these crucial additional…
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Rapha: A renaissance in cycling
in accessories, assortment structure planning, branding & visual communication, customer experience, customer service, customer-engagement, disruptive retail, food & drink, in-store services, internationalisation, leisure & sport, new retail, omni-channel retailing, product suppliers, retail, retail brand heritage, retail strategy, shop of the future, social savvy, store experience, store theatre, telling product stories, visual merchandisingThe lessons for us all: “Never treat your customers as a commodity but as a community. To have a community you must have common passions, missions and values. You must believe and mean something to your customers. And you must re-establish and re-enforce that meaning in everything that you do.” Rapha Performance Road wear is…
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