‘Sweeping the steps of Customer Experience in 2014’ – out with the old and in with the new for 2015

As we approach the last 24 hours before the end of 2014, I feel it is time to reflect on the last twelve months in the world of Customer Experience. Twelve months is not a particularly long time in the context of a lifetime of experiences, yet it is remarkable what progress can be made in 365 days. If you can remember what you were doing on the 30th December 2013 you will know what I mean!

Today is the 30th December 2014 – a day that I am pinching myself at the amazing advance that has been made in the profession that Customer Experience has become. It is difficult to find a company at the end of a long twelve months that is not talking about Customer Experience. Most CEOs and other business leaders have integrated the words Customer Experience into most of their internal and external presentations. Most companies now have an individual or a team who are responsible for either designing or improving the Customer Experience (or both) – it is almost as if Customer Experience has ceased to be a ‘nice to do’ initiative and is now firmly ingrained in the way businesses do business.

On this very day, I went to collect a parcel at my local Royal Mail sorting office. The wall behind the lady serving me was decorated with ‘Customer Experience Certificates of Excellence’ – a sight that gave me a warm glow. Customer Experience training is pretty commonplace now – even to the point where the profession has its very own professional qualification – CCXP (Certified Customer Experience Professional – who would have thought twelve months ago that Customer Experience would be a professional competency?! There are now 129 CCXPs around the globe – these numbers will increase dramatically in 2015.

Despite this wonderful progress, the reality is that we as customers and as consumers are still having experiences that fall a long way short of meeting our expectations. Regular followers of my blog will have read a number of stories this year that are embarrassing to digest. Many of these stories originate in organisations who like to think they ARE customer centric – they have a long way to go in my opinion. If you want to read some of them, below is a small sample!

Norwegian

JD Williams

Virgin Media

Tesco

Vauxhall

Currys PC World

Virgin Trains

Sainsburys

Customers and the experiences they have with businesses will always exist. The problem for the businesses that serve us is that our expectations are continually changing and evolving – that means that unless the customer journey provided by the business evolves with the needs of its customers, at some point there will be an almighty problem. That is why the job of the Customer Experience professional will never end. That is why the significance of Customer Experience in driving the sustainable growth of businesses must become even more prominent in 2015, not less.

So what should we be looking for in the world of Customer Experience in 2015? Recently, a very wise man called Ian Thomas told me a story on the eve of his retirement. Ian is/was not a Customer Experience professional – however his role was to influence, inspire, encourage and support his community and uphold the things he believed in. In a way, our roles are very similar. Ian described how important it is when leaving a place for the last time to ‘sweep the steps’ of that place to leave it in perfect condition for the person that follows you. What better way to start a new chapter in your life than to do so with everything looking spick and span. At the same time, clearing up behind you is cleansing for the person ‘moving on’ – enabling them to do so without regrets and only looking forward to the opportunities ahead.

I think this story is a beautiful analogy for what to expect in the world of Customer Experience in 2015. At midnight tomorrow, 2014 will come to an end. Twelve months of toil and effort in trying to improve the Customer Experience for your business. Some things will have worked. Some things will have not. Some people will have moved a little further forward on their own personal journey. Others may have slipped behind. Whatever has happened, we must be proud of what has been achieved. We must reflect on the progress that has been made before ‘sweeping the steps’ to get ready for the opportunities that lie ahead in 2015.

2015 is all about opportunity when it comes to Customer Experience. The fact that everyone is talking about it is a hugely positive thing – move on from 2014 into a world of possibility in 2015. If something did not work in 2014, try something new in 2015 – what have you got to lose? As long as you are doing the right things for the right reasons to benefit customers, employees and shareholders, you must believe in what could be possible.

What does not change in 2015 is the need to get the BASICS right. The reason why most consumers get annoyed is because the companies they interact with fail to do the most basic of things. I stayed in a lovely hotel over the Christmas period – four of the light bulbs in our room were not working – there is no excuse for basic things like that. Yet it is not just the basics that should be focused on in 2015. In my opinion, if companies want to take their Customer Experience to the next level in 2015, they should look no further than the strength of their EMOTIONAL engagement with customers.

The online revolution has led to the severe erosion of emotional engagement in customer interactions. The companies who can deliver the best functional experiences as simply as possible in the most EMOTIONALLY engaging way will be the winners in 2015.

So it is only left for me to thank each and every one of you who has read, contributed and commented on my blogs in 2014. I have thoroughly enjoyed writing every post and look back with great pride at the stories I have been able to share. But now it is time for me to sweep my own steps and prepare for another fantastic year of blogging opportunities in 2015. I wish you all a very happy and prosperous New Year!

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This post was inspired by and is dedicated to my friend and blogging inspiration Ian Thomas. Along with his lovely wife Margaret, they have been a hugely important part of our lives over the last few years. A wonderful orator, I will very much miss Ian’s stories. On behalf of Naomi, Ciara, Caitie and Jack, I would like to thank you for everything and wish you a very long and happy retirement.

Shareholder or Customer First? The difference between Tesco and Amazon

October 2014 was not the best day to be a shareholder of two of the world’s retail giants. Tesco continued their unfortunate journey from world domination to public implosion. The company who convinced the UK and beyond that ‘every little helps’ are going to need all the help they can get to fight through their greatest ever crisis. Whilst the plight of Tesco was very visibly reported in the UK, the performance of an even bigger retail juggernaut was less so. On the day that the BBC reported Tesco shares ‘plunging’ by more than 8%, Amazon shares ‘plunged’ by 10%. All is not rosy in the supersize retail world it seems.

As someone who spends every working day influencing organisations to focus on people (customers and employees), I am always intrigued that the reporting of business performance seems to spend more time empathising with shareholders than it does with customers and employees. Do not get me wrong – I obviously recognise that the financial performance of any business will determine its very existence – declining financial performance is big news, especially if the decline is significant. However I think it is important to focus less on the effect on shareholders and more on what is behind the decline in the first place.

Too many businesses worry about Shareholders first, automatically placing concerns for customers and employees lower down the list of priorities. Businesses cannot operate without shareholders and investors – that is true – yet I believe that it is vital for companies to focus on getting things right for customers and employees first so that in turn, shareholders will benefit from the improving financial performance of the business. This is a subtle but very significant reversal of what we see reported in the business pages on a regular basis.

Although both Tesco and Amazon saw their declining financial performance very clearly displayed in the car headlights yesterday, the reasons behind the declines are very very different – in my opinion, the reasons highlight brilliant why their business models/cultures have been so very very different over the last few years.

I wrote about the ‘Bursting of the Tesco bubble’ in July 2014. In my blog post I argued that whilst they publicly claimed that ‘no-one tries harder for their customers’, the reality is that they were trying too hard to please their shareholders. Their obsession with growth led them to taking their eye off the ball of why they really exist and what their customers want. They are now in a situation where the behaviour has led to an almost complete erosion of trust with the very consumer that they believed they were working so hard to please. Perhaps the greatest challenge now facing the new CEO, Dave Lewis, is to be able to stand up to shareholders and allow them to understand why the needs of customers and colleagues must be put back ahead of their own.

Let us look at the contrast with Amazon. A company that has famously been focussed more on growth than profit, there are many similarities with the trajectory that Tesco have taken over the last few years. Still led by their founder, Jeff Bezos, unlike Tesco their entire business model is based on meeting and exceeding customer expectations. Shareholders need to be in it for the long term. Yesterday the BBC reported the following:

Investors have long been wondering when Amazon will turn its significant revenues into profits for shareholders. Amazon has been spending heavily in various new initiatives, including its Amazon Fresh grocery delivery service in the US, and its $1bn acquisition of video game streaming site Twitch.That has hurt profits at the firm, with operating expenses growing to $21.1bn, compared with the $17.1bn last year. Investors have been tolerant of Amazon’s policy of reinvesting profits back into the firm. But patience has been wearing thin in recent months. Shares in the firm have fallen nearly 20% since the beginning of this year.

Unhappy, restless shareholders whose patience is wearing thin. The response of many large corporations would be to immediately address their concerns and do whatever it takes to deliver them a return in the short term. That may be the response from many, but not from Amazon and Mr Bezos. Rather than pandering to shareholders, Jeff Bezos’s public statement when talking about their financial performance was as follows:

“As we get ready for this upcoming holiday season, we are focused on making the customer experience easier and more stress-free than ever,”

This is why Customer Experience Professionals love Jeff Bezos!! Amazon is about long term relationships – with customers, employees and shareholders. The returns will come in time. In order to sustain and grow a business, Mr Bezos understands that it MUST be done so by delivering a stress free experience that just keeps getting better and better. It is not difficult to understand. Of course the investors and shareholders deserve to receive a healthy return on their investment – I am completely confident that will come (as I am sure Mr Bezos is) – they just need to be patient and recognise that continually focussing on improving the customer experience will secure both the returns and the sustainability of the business for a very long time.

As the dust settles, I am sure that Jeff Bezos is a far more relaxed business leader than Dave Lewis. Businesses need shareholders, but they need customers more. If both organisations can influence their investors to recognise that greater returns come from consistently getting better at giving customers what they want and need, the media will very soon be reporting a very different story.

 

The bursting of the Tesco bubble. When it comes to Customer Experience, bigger does not necessarily mean better!

I first wrote a blog post about Tesco two years ago. Entitled ‘Tesco: Hero or Villain – You Decide’, I made the case for Tesco being a hero – achieving huge financial success due to its ability to do everything the consumer wanted it to do. I wrote:

Being blunt, Tesco have done what every retailer should have done – they have given millions of British consumers ‘what they wanted’ – QUALITY, CHOICE, FLEXIBILITY, RELIABILITY and CONVENIENCE. Tesco successfully identified that we wanted our weekly shopping experience to be easier, without the hassle. If they could create a proposition that not only allowed mum and dad to get their baked beans, but also pick up the school uniform for the new term at the same time, most mums and dads would be happy with that. And we were……are.

However many disagree with my point of view (as of course they are entitled to do). Apart from their apparent disregard for independent retailers, Tesco’s financial fortunes have been on the wane for the last three years. My friend and fellow blogger, Helen Dewdney (or the Complaining Cow as she is better known), has not been a fan of Tesco for a long time – or more specifically she has not been a fan of their CEO – Phillip Clarke. Helen, who is an expert in the field of Complaints, believes that Tesco and Phillip Clarke are guilty of not listening to customers. Helen believes it is this failure to listen that has led to Tesco’s current predicament and the announcement of Phillip Clarke’s departure in October. You can read Helen’s point of view here.

Whatever way you look at it, Tesco is a hugely successful business. Employing over 500,000 people in 12 markets, it still is a hugely successful business serving 75 million shopping trips every single week – that is a lot of customer experiences! After years of unrivalled ‘double digit’ growth, Tesco’s sales have been in decline ever since Mr Clarke took over the leadership reigns from Sir Terry Leahy. You could say failure was inevitable – akin to David Moyes succeeding Sir Alex Fergusson at Manchester United, how could anyone take over from where Sir Terry left off?

One of the things that has always fascinated me about the largest companies in many sectors is that they are always obsessed with getting bigger. Never being satisfied with simply sustaining their business, the ever challenging demands of shareholders have meant that big is never big enough. Year after year revenues are expected to rise – failure to do so often results in the fate that Mr Clarke has now experienced – the exit door for the man or woman at the top.

Growth comes in multiple ways – expansion, acquisition and diversification in the main. Tesco have shown deftness at all of them. When Jack Cohen opened his market stall in 1919, he would not have imagined his business selling anything from bananas to mobile phones to house insurance in the UK, Hungary and China among others. With stores of all shapes and sizes and now multi national as well, Tesco is a conglomerate with a variety of different business interests.  Throughout all of this growth, Tesco have been as customer focussed as any of their competitors (in my opinion). As I said in my 2012 blog – their growth has been achieved as they have consistently given consumers what they demanded.

BUT….there is always one of those….it appears that Tesco have made a very big mistake. One of their core values is ‘No one tries harder for customers’. They say they put this into practice by ‘understanding customers’; ‘being first to meet their needs’; and ‘acting responsibly for communities’. The image below is taken from their corporate website:

I am all for organisations having a clear vision supported by values, but only if they are understood and acted on. Helen Dewdney’s post strongly suggests that these are just ‘nice words’ and not a reality at all. The thousands of people all over the country who have protested at Tesco’s continuing desire to open more and more stores on the UK’s high streets will no doubt refute the ‘acting responsibly for our communities’ value. Yet the biggest mistake of all appears to be the first one – ‘understanding our customers’. I am not sure that Tesco can honestly say that they have understood and acted upon the changing needs of the consumer.

In 2014, the British consumer still wants QUALITY, CHOICE, FLEXIBILITY, RELIABILITY and CONVENIENCE – but he/she also wants these things to be at the best VALUE FOR MONEY. In its quest for more, Tesco has lost sight of just exactly what Tesco is. In the same way that Marks & Spencer struggle to let the poor old consumer know what it is, Tesco has fallen in to the same trap. It is no longer clear who Tesco are competing with. Is it Sainsburys, Morrisons and Asda, or is it Waitrose? Are we supposed to select Tesco ahead of Aldi and Lidl? Are Tesco Mobile better than Vodafone, O2 and EE? It seems to me that in their obsession with the numbers, Tesco have FAILED to adjust to the changing needs and behaviours of the consumers they did so well to nurture.

I remember at University, listening to a lecture about business diversification. Whilst I cannot remember the specifics, I will never forget the lecturer teaching my classmates and I about the risks of businesses trying to diversify into interests that are not core to its proposition. Taking your eye of the ball of your core business is a very real issue – something that may have led to Tesco’s current plight. Tesco desperately need to decide what it is again. Why should the British consumer spend their hard-earned money with Tesco as opposed to the plethora of competitors who are stealing customers away?

The Golding family used to shop at Tesco. We do so no longer. Why? Quality is not what it used to be. Although Choice, Flexibility and Convenience are all still good, Tesco is no longer good Value for Money. Why shop at Tesco when you can get the same (if not better) quality with far better value at Aldi? Tesco, like M&S, high street banks and utility companies need to work hard to convince us to understand not just who they are, but to trust them again. Being the biggest may please the shareholders, but it does not necessarily mean that you will deliver the best experiences. Being biggest does not mean you will be able to continue giving customers what they need or want.

Dave Lewis, the incoming CEO of Tesco will need to work hard to convince his organisation that the best way to take the company forward……I would argue the only way……is to start putting customers interests before shareholders demands. While the company continues with its obsession to just get bigger, they will continue to drive customers away. If Tesco want to be true to their values, start to listen and understand what customers want – and design the future experience accordingly. This will take time – but it will ensure both the sustainability of the business and long-term returns for investors.

 

 

Customer Promises – a great thing…if you really mean it!

Thousands of customers of one of the UKs largest utility companies, SSE, received an interesting letter this week. If you are not a customer of SSE, you can read my copy of the letter shown above. I think the letter is interesting because it makes a rather bold statement. It makes a statement that instantly attracted my attention – ‘Aiming higher – because you matter to us’. The letter goes on to tell us, the valued customer, how talking about the importance of service is good, but not as good as taking action. SSE wants to prove to us how seriously they take customer service, and that they have even gone ‘above and beyond’ the regulator’s standards by implementing three service initiatives.

Sounds great….doesn’t it? You could argue that this is exactly what the consumer needs to see from a company in an industry that is experiencing huge levels of scrutiny, dissent and dissatisfaction from politicians, the media and customers. I think it can only be a positive thing for an organisation to openly and overtly make a promise or commitment to its customers. Honesty, openness, transparency – even decency – are all words that we find hard to associate with businesses today. So congratulations SSE, I applaud you for having the courage to promise to treat us as you would like to be treated yourselves.

BUT…..there is usually one of those in my blog posts – can we be certain that you will be true to your word? Call me cynical (and potentially many other things), but whilst hoping that they will be true to their word, I am not going to hold my breath waiting for the promises to become a reality. Many customers will not even give SSE the benefit of the doubt. A proportion of these letters (I would love to know exactly how many) will have been filed in the dustbin without even being opened. Others will have been dismissed as clever marketing by a company in a beleaguered industry. I wish this were not true, but can you blame the public for not necessarily believing something like this?

Do you remember the Nat West and/or RBS Customer Charter? Launched in a nationwide marketing campaign, airports, train stations and billboards all over the UK were plastered with messages telling us how two of Britain’s biggest banking brands were going to become our most helpful bank. 14 customer commitments were as follows:

1. To extend the opening hours at its busiest branches
2. Aims to serve the majority of customers within five minutes in its branches
3. To provide “friendly, helpful service”
4. To help customers make the right choices
5. To provide 24/7 telephone banking services
6. To keep customers safe when banking online
7. Helping customers whose debit cards have been lost or stolen
8. Continuing to be a ‘responsible lender’
9. To keep a branch open if it is the last remaining bank in that community
10. To teach more than 25,000 financial education lessons in schools this year
11. To “actively support the local community” through volunteer projects
12. To resolve customer complaints “fairly, consistently, and promptly”
13. To publish  its most frequent customer complaints biannually
14. To actively seek customer suggestions on how to improve

When I ask people if they have any recollection of these ‘commitments’, I am met with vague and often confused expressions. I am no sure the ‘marketing campaign’ worked. Although the Nat West/RBS Charter was big on words, it seems as though the customers I have spoken to have not really noticed any difference. I myself am a Nat West customer, and have been since I went to university. I cannot recall receiving any information about their commitments in the last twelve months. I have not been asked what I think since the day I became a customer too long ago.

I had a look to see how they are getting on with their ‘mission’ to become our most helpful bank. It seems as though they have toned down, or ‘evolved’ their ambitions since 2010. Gone are the 14 commitments, replaced by something a bit simpler – here is the RBS Group report on their 2012 performance – you can come to your own conclusion – http://www.rbs.com/content/dam/rbs/Documents/Customers/customer-charter.pdf

If you are going to make promises to your customers – you need to really mean it. You cannot make promises as part of a marketing campaign to make you sound good. You need to make a promise and stick to it. My recent research into ‘what customers want’ revealed that ‘keeping promises’ is one of the top three most important things (http://ijgolding.com/2013/11/06/what-do-customers-really-want-the-top-five-most-important-things-revealed/). Failing to deliver on promises can have very serious consequences. If you CAN do what you say, the complete opposite can be the case. Take good old John Lewis for example. Perhaps one of the best examples of an organisation that has delivered against a customer promise for a very long time.

We all know, recognise and potentially love John Lewis for its ‘never knowingly undersold’ slogan. The trust that this business has built up with the consumer over decades has made it one of the most successful and sustainable retailers in the UK. We can be pretty confident that John Lewis will keep to their promise – can SSE do the same and achieve a similar result?

John Lewis are not the only retailer with customer promises. Tesco have had made promises for years. Some of their promises have become so embedded in the way they work, customers do not even know they are promises any more – they are almost taken for granted. For example, ‘keeping the aisles clear’ is drummed into the psyche of all Tesco employees from day one. It seems a very simple promise – but it you do not have to ‘run the gauntlet’ down Tesco aisles in the same way you do in other supermarkets. Tesco also have a promise known as ‘one in front’ – if there is more than one customer queuing at a checkout, they will open another checkout. There are rarely long queues as a result.

Like Nat West/RBS, Tesco have evolved their promises – the latest version can be seen here. Are Tesco true to them? This is their attempt to openly tell us how it should feel to be a customer of Tesco. By telling us this, we can hold them to account. Do we believe them? Well that is a different matter.

So what will come of SSE’s statement of intent? Will they become the ‘John Lewis’ of the utility industry, or have they just spent a huge amount of money on a clever marketing campaign? I genuinely hope the former. I am not going to put money on it just yet though.

Stop talking and act NOW!! Is it too late for our high streets?

The demise of the British high street has been in the news recently almost as often as reports on the state of the economy as a whole. Fuelled by a continuous procession of failing retailers, journalists and broadcasters are fortunate to be in one industry that is greatly benefitting from the deluge of news stories available.

The causes of high street strife have as a result been discussed in-depth and at great length. Exorbitant business rates, parking charges, lack of collaboration, changing consumer behaviours and online shopping are amongst the major causes of decline. A few months ago I wrote a blog post on the very subject –  http://ijgolding.com/2012/10/18/im-not-paying-to-park-why-the-british-high-street-might-be-struggling/

There are many retail experts who are concerned that whilst a lot of ‘talking’ has and continues to be heard (or not as the case may be!), very little much-needed ACTION is being taken to address the actual causes of the problems. Just yesterday it was reported that the ‘High Street Retail Fund’, created last year to help bring new business back to the high streets, has been ‘barely touched’. We know this because Paul Turner-Mitchell, a passionate and committed independent retailer, is not prepared to stand by and watch the environment that he relies on continue to ebb away. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-21775773

Paul is not alone. There are a number of well-known and vocal independent retailers who are perfectly placed to advise and assist in the regeneration of our high streets. Among them is Clare Rayner, one of the best known retail ‘gurus’ in the UK – here is a recent article that surmises some of her thoughts. http://www.theinformationdaily.com/2013/03/08/town-team-volunteers-not-enough-skills-for-high-street-rescue.

Whilst the debate continues, the biggest concern has to be that the high street will continue to fall further behind in the economic race for share of the ‘consumer wallet’. One very clear way of attracting consumers to a high street is through a compelling ‘end to end customer experience’. From the ease of access, to free parking, to choice of products, to entertainment, to food available. The ‘whole’ experience is one of the things lacking in the high street.

Interestingly though, the ‘end to end experience’ is often lacking in alternative experiences provided by the high streets competition. Whilst big out of town shopping centres (such as the Trafford Centre in Manchester, or the Westfield shopping centres in London) offer everything the consumer could possibly need, out-of-town supermarkets often do not. Using Tesco as an example – whilst they have very successfully combined the food and non food shopping experience, their stores are not as attractive a destination for a ‘day out’.

It was therefore not a surprise to me that Tesco announced yesterday the purchase of Giraffe – a fantastic family restaurant chain http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2013/mar/13/tesco-giraffe-food-children-restaurants. I have visited Giraffe on many occasions (mainly in and around London). It is an incredibly family friendly restaurant that serves up great quality food – certainly a significantly superior dining experience to the Cafes that exist in Tesco stores at the moment. In making this move, Tesco will be generating yet further reason to visit their store. They are adding more ‘collateral’ to their customer experience.

I think this is a very clever move. It is important that they maintain the quality of experience that Giraffe currently delivers, but I strongly believe that more consumers will experience Giraffe alongside their weekly shop going forward. Tesco is a ‘mega’ brand that is regularly accused of ‘damaging’ the high street. I do not completely agree with this view. If Tesco are guilty of anything, it is of giving the consumer what the consumer demands – if this were not the case, they would not have been able to achieve the success they have.

The move to incorporate a ‘first rate’ child friendly dining offer into their customer experience, in my opinion demonstrates their willingness to develop and innovate. They are not prepared to stand still and just ‘talk’ about issues and problems. Central and Local government MUST take note of this. Whilst Tesco takes another step forward, the high street takes one step back. The inclusion of Giraffe will be yet another reason to take consumers away from the high street.

Instead of continuing to talk, why not listen to the people best placed to help take the high street in the right direction. Why not take note of the expertise that expert retailers such as Paul and Clare can provide. Unless we do, the high street will continue to struggle. Let’s not see that happen.

You can follow Paul and Clare on twitter @Paul25Ten @clarerayner

What do you think of the Giraffe acquisition? What can be done to save our high streets? Your views are very welcome as always.

‘I just want to know how many calories!’ – the need for honesty, transparency and clarity in the customer experience

Unless you have been living in a cave, you could not have avoided the recent horse meat scandal. The scandal is still raging in fact, with the focus most recently shifting to the meat that is really in our curries. One of the key words that underpins any customer experience is TRUST – something the consumer has precious little of in Britain at the moment. In the last few years we have learned how not to trust our banks. Now it seems that we find it hard to trust our favourite supermarkets.

Now more than ever, it is vital for organisations that play such a significant part in our lives, to work to put the trust back. To give us faith that as a customer, the businesses we transact with wants to do best by us. We want organisations to be seen to be putting their customers first, rather than the balance sheet.

Sticking with the supermarkets, you would have thought that the recent ‘crisis’ would have meant that they would question everything they do. Yes, it is now critical to ensure that the food they are selling is what it says on the tin. But what about other important information that forms part of the customer journey decision-making process?

In an ever more health conscious society, the nutritional content of the food we buy has become part of the customer journey when we conduct the weekly shop. As a man deep in the middle of my ‘mid life crisis’, wanting to know the amount of calories and saturated fat in the food I buy is now very important to me. Sadly, rather than being an area that the supermarkets are excelling at, I fear that they are failing to meet three important principles – HONESTY, TRANSPARENCY & CLARITY.

To explain what I mean, let me use an example. Over the weekend, I dragged my poor children to five supermarkets. In each, I purchased the same product – a tub of Beetroot salad. I wanted to see how simple it is to find out how many calories are in each. What did I find?

Well I would sum it up as confusion. I like to think that I am a fairly well-educated man, but I find it really hard to understand why and how the supermarkets publish the information on products in the way they do. It almost makes me think that they want customers to be confused. As a customer experience, I just find it irritating. Let’s have a look at each one in turn.

Firstly, where you find the information on the product is not that simple. Morrisons seem to be pretty good at doing this, most of the time publishing the information on the top. Looks pretty transparent to me……until you look closely, and realise that the information is for a third of a pack. Why? It might just be me, but what is the likelihood that anyone buying the product is going to eat a third of it? Surely it would make sense to tell me the information for the whole pack? My maths is not brilliant, but I am now being forced to exert some mental effort to figure out how many calories are in the whole pack. I just find it odd and unclear. So Morrisons – 10 out of 10 for visibility, 3.33 (roughly a third) out of ten for clarity.

Sainsburys have always been very good at displaying their traffic light system on packets. It was pretty easy to find this on the side of the tub. I now know why I should have concentrated more at school when being taught fractions! Sainsburys seem to think it is better to display the information in quarters – not thirds!! Why? They may think the information is clear, but I would like to bet that many consumers do not see the little white strip that states the information is only for a quarter of the pack. So Sainsburys – 10 out of 10 for visibility, 2.5 (a quarter) out of ten for clarity!

What about Marks & Spencer – surely they must be good at doing this! Wrong! M&S actually make it quite hard to find the information – in this case, it could be found in small print on a label on the bottom of the product. They are not even bothered with fractions. M&S would rather leave you to figure it out for yourself, quoting ‘typical values per 100g’. You have to go back to the top of the pack to determine that it is 250g, and then try to figure out what the total calorie content is. Complicated – you bet it is. Why can we not just have some clarity and transparency as a consumer? M&S – 3 out of 10 for visibility, 2 out of ten for clarity.

Next up was Tesco – a brand that has committed publicly to improving customer service. Like Sainsburys and Morrisons, the nutritional information was clearly visible on the side of the pot. However, Tesco, like M&S do not go for fractions. Tesco prefer to go for ‘heaped teaspoon’ as their measure – heaped teaspoon!! How am I supposed to know how many heaped teaspoons are in one pot. Whoever decided on the words to be used on the pot was not thinking about the customer experience – that is for sure! Tesco – 10 out of 10 for visibility, 1 out of 10 for clarity.

Last up on my mini test was Asda. Not as visible as Sainsburys, Morrisons or Tesco, they displayed the information on the back of the pot. They, like M&S, opted for the ‘typical values per 100g’ method, displayed next to a clearly visible 300g in three times the font! Why could they just not give me the values for 300g then?! Asda – 7 out of 10 for visibility, 3 out of ten for clarity.

I recognise that this is a pretty unsophisticated study. It is also not representative at all of the full range of products sold by these brands. However, as a mini test of the honesty, transparency and clarity of providing essential information to customers, it highlights some serious flaws. I find it very hard to believe that these labels are printed by someone who is THINKING in the same way a customer does. What the motivation of the labelling is, I can only speculate. It does appear as though the customer is still NOT front and centre of the decision-making process.

If we can learn anything from the horse meat scandal, is that organisations can ill afford to be untruthful to their customers. To restore consumer confidence in the brands we all use and love, we just need a little bit of common sense to prevail. Do not pull the wool over our eyes, just say it as it is – and let us make a decision as to whether to buy something or not.

Food labelling will continue to get ever more important in the food buying customer journey. I can only hope that the big supermarkets can continue to improve the visibility and clarity of the information – quickly!

What do you think of food labelling? Please feel free to comment on this, or any of my blog posts. I’m just off to eat some beetroot salad – I have plenty of it to get through!!

Next up

‘Don’t judge a book by its cover’ – it does not matter what you look like, a customer is a customer

This is Helen Kewell. I met Helen and her husband Nick last year whilst attempting to climb too many mountains in too short a space of time. Helen is a very intelligent, witty, attractive mum of three – I am sure she will not mind me saying that she does not look like she has had three kids!! Looking at her picture, all of us can make assumptions about Helen – we can do so with anyone we meet, whether it be in real life, or via a photograph. Why this is important will become clear as you read on.

Last week, like many millions of us around the world, Helen posted a status update on Facebook. Her update was a brief ‘rant’ (as she put it) about an experience she had just had in her local Sainsburys. Helen’s words struck a chord with me – even in the few sentences she posted, I could see that what she had experienced was actually quite significant – to the point where others can learn from it. I therefore asked Helen if she would be interested in writing a ‘guest blog’ for me. You can probably tell that she agreed. I am delighted to give her the opportunity to share the story…….so here goes…….

“In life it is a great and humbling quality to be able to see beyond the facade and not assume anything about the people we interact with. I fight with this on a daily basis in the quest to be a nicer and more accepting person! It strikes me that the companies that excel in customer service are investing in this and getting it right.

Let me give you a personal example of a company that got this wrong today.
I suffer with ME, some days are better than others. My symptoms wax and wane but, crucially to this example, you would rarely guess it from the outside. I look ok, I smile, I do normal stuff. I am lucky enough not to have severe symptoms and I’m as high functioning as I guess they come. However, certain environments and situations can be hard and sometimes there isn’t a warning when a crash is coming.

So today after a busy week (and a lack of organisation) I find myself at Sainsburys as I forgot to book the delivery that I’ve come to rely on. No biggy. We’re a family of 5 though so a weekly shop is big and heavy and can be tiring. Factor in the bright lights and low level noise and (ME can cause hypersensitivity to light and sound) and by the time I got to the checkout I needed a sit down and I was aching. I’m not someone that likes to admit defeat and I’m not someone who likes to ask for help so I was very proud of myself for telling the lady on the checkout that I needed help with packing. I still had to load the car, unload the car and put it all away so I knew some help at this point would give me a boost. Reading that last line I realise that sounds crazy as its such a normal thing to do to go and shop for food, but ME can feel on a bad day like very bad flu and even the simplest things seem complicated and hard.

The lady in my checkout told me ‘the person’ who helps with packing was helping someone else and pointed at this one person who could help, who was indeed arm-deep in orange Sainsburys’ bags. She shrugged. She looked a me a little more closely and I knew she was asking herself why I needed help, didn’t see a strong case for needing help and got on with scanning my food. I asked her to please go slowly so I could keep up with the packing. Whilst doing this I looked around and counted 4 other staff in the area not on checkouts. One packing shelves, one with a clipboard and 2 of the ‘headset’ mafia who, according to one of my friends, look more like members of Steps than useful employees…. Anyone of them could have been asked by my checkout lady to help if my case looked stronger I supposed i.e. if I showed outward signs of distress, illness or disability.

I was cross for not saying more so I approached one of the headsets when I’d paid for my groceries and explained what had happened so that she could be aware of it and maybe feed it back in the next team meeting or something. Tired and a little emotional about the experience I had tears in my eyes and was a little embarrassed by this. In return all I got was a weak “sorry” and a slight raise of the eye brows. The worst thing was that I was too exhausted to make any more fuss! While I had been shopping earlier I noticed a Sainsburys employee accompanying a blind woman with a guide dog and seen staff talking to her, addressing her and her dog by name. I’d been impressed by this level of care. In retrospect it makes me more angry at how I was treated.

What can consumer brands learn from this experience? Don’t make assumptions on customer needs based in what you see in front of you. Listen to what they are saying, look for the clues that are not obvious as well as those that aren’t. There are so many disabling conditions that can’t be easily noticed: depression, colour blindness, back problems, arthritis, anxiety, partial hearing to name but a few. Everyone that walks into your store has a story to tell that differentiates them for the next and it runs far beyond what you see on the outside. But fundamentally if a customer asks for help – help them! Don’t allow your staff to make subjective judgements just because it makes their life easier or interrupts their productivity. Productivity is nothing if you destroy trust and goodwill.

Now if I’d been in a competitor store, you know the one with the green and white branding starting with a W…I’m pretty sure the story would have been different. I bear no ill feelings towards the lady on the checkout by the way. She was doing her job and processing my groceries and taking payment. She isn’t necessarily working in an organisation or for a store that has trained, encouraged or rewarded her to think beyond what she sees in front of her, to go a little more for customers and see them as individuals. She hasn’t been taught to look beyond the cover to see or guess at the story inside.

Helen Kewell, February 2013

This brilliantly written and eloquent account of what should have been an insignificant grocery shopping experience hits right at the heart of what consistently delivering a customer experience is all about. Customer experience is about delivering a journey. All journeys have start and end points with lots of bits in the middle. If anything in that journey goes wrong, it can have a material effect on what the customer feels and will remember about the experience.

People are the critical glue that gels the experience together. People are the element of the customer experience that can still make things feel good, even if they go wrong. If your people ‘get it’, your customer should always feel as if someone cares – which may forgive some of the shortcomings elsewhere in the journey. In Helen’s case, it was regrettably the lack of caring from Sainsburys people that proved to be the downfall.

I chaired a customer experience conference in London last week. I was fortunate to have the opportunity to listen to a presentation from Tesco’s Customer Service Director. She spent forty very valuable minutes explaining to the audience all about Tesco’s customer service strategy. The key point of her presentation was that Tesco knew that they had to get better at delivering excellent customer service – I find this a heart warming sentiment from an organisation that makes millions of pounds worth of profit every year. She shared the Tesco core purpose:

“We make what matters better – together”

She also shared Tesco’s Values:

1. No one tries harder for customers
2. We treat everyone how we like to be treated
3. We use our scale for good

From the looks of it, Helen’s experience would not have happened in Tesco – and I agree it would also have been unlikely in Waitrose. Perhaps it would have been unlikely in other Sainsburys stores. I am no sure if Sainsburys have similar values – if not, they could do with getting some!

The purpose of sharing Helen’s story is to enable others to learn from the experience. I would like to think that Sainsburys will also share this story with their store managers and staff. It would have been so simple for the lady on the checkout to call the checkout supervisor – but she made a snap decision that it was not important enough. If a customer asks for help, that is enough.

Thank you Helen for being prepared to be so open and honest in sharing with us. I hope that good will come out of your avoidable experience. You can follow Helen on Twitter @helenkewell

As always, your comments will be very gratefully received.

Tesco: Hero or Villain – You Decide

For the last 20 years, Tesco has moved indomitably to become the UKs largest retailer. From being just a successful supermarket, Tesco now sells everything from mobile phones, to printer cartridges, to the latest designer fashions. Tesco even has its own bank.

In becoming the giant it has today, Tesco stores have popped up like daffodils in Spring – although in the case of Tesco, the daffodils have been popping up all year round. There are enormous ‘out of town’ Tesco Extra stores – selling you everything you could possibly imagine. There are Tesco Metro stores on the high street and on shop corners – sometimes there are more than one on the same street!! There are Tescos everywhere!

As Tesco have grown, there are many positive and negative commentators who preach the relative benefits (or not) of the success the organisation has achieved – far in excess of any of their competitors. Some say that Tesco’s growth has been to the detriment of the British high street – forcing many smaller retailers to close down because they simply could not compete with Tesco’s buying power. Why buy my meat from the local butcher, when I can buy it along with everything else during my weekly shop at Tesco?

Now there are many reasons as to why we should preserve the great British High Street, and I am by no means writing in support of the demise of smaller businesses. However, it is important to look closer at what Tesco have done from a CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE perspective, to understand why they have been so successful while others have not.

Being blunt, Tesco have done what every retailer should have done – they have given millions of British consumers ‘what they wanted’ – QUALITY, CHOICE, FLEXIBILITY, RELIABILITY and CONVENIENCE. Tesco successfully identified that we wanted our weekly shopping experience to be easier, without the hassle. If they could create a proposition that not only allowed mum and dad to get their baked beans, but also pick up the school uniform for the new term at the same time, most mums and dads would be happy with that. And we were……are.

Tesco committed to listen to the things that were most important to customers and deliver the shopping experience we want:

Tesco never used to be as enormous as they are today – they earned it (I would argue), by meeting customer expectation. If we, the customer, did not want what they were offering, we would never have shopped there. But the proposition is just too compelling. Everything we need located in the right place, or accessible online at the price we want – it is a winning combination.

So I appear to be erring on the side of ‘hero’ at the moment – BUT – I do acknowledge, that the bigger Tesco became, the more difficult it has become for the independent retailer to compete – on some things they will never be able to compete (such as being able to sell food and non food in one high street store for example). However, I strongly believe that if ALL businesses LISTEN to the British consumer, and give us what we want, they too can be as successful as Tesco (albeit in relative terms).

Businesses make money because they meet our needs – we cannot take away from Tesco that they achieved this. HOWEVER, things are starting to change…..Tesco’s dominance is being challenged……their financial perfiormance is starting to suffer…….just read this article http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17767565 – even Tesco is infallible.

At this point, the commentators who are thinking Tesco = villain have finally got the headlines they have been looking for. Tesco have got their comeuppance. Tesco have got too big for their boots. Many large organisations in the UK would potentially put their head in the sands and put everything down to ‘trading conditions’.

I actually think, that despite some of the negative effects Tesco’s growth has had on the high street, as an example of how a big business should react when things are going wrong, Tesco is shining. Instead of putting their head in the sands, Tesco had the COURAGE to acknowledge that they had to fix things. They had the CONFIDENCE to admit they were not getting everything right, and they announce their plan:

UK Plan – Building a Better Tesco:

• £1bn commitment this year to improve the shopping trip for customers – including c.£0.4bn of capital investment – focused on six key elements:
  • 1. Service & Staff – more staff for existing stores, initially in fresh food departments
  • 2. Stores & Formats – faster store Refresh programme; introducing warmer look and feel
  • 3. Price & Value – better prices and promotions, more personalised offers
  • 4. Range & Quality – better ranges, starting with re-launching the Tesco brands
  • 5. Brand & Marketing – better, clearer, more relevant communication with customers
  • 6. Clicks & Bricks – Click & Collect roll out, transforming range and online presence

Tesco had acknowledged that the customer experience was not good enough. This is despite the company still making a profit in the BILLIONS. As a customer experience professional, I recognise how hard it is sometimes for senior leaders of organisations to admit they have got things wrong. It is also still (shamefully and unfortunately) not often, that senior leaders of large organisations recognise the significance of the customer experience on financial performance.

Tesco are a HERO to me because they have – they recognise how important we are – the customer, the consumer – to the long term health and survival of their business. They have recognised that the number 1 thing to fix on their plan is SERVICE. They have committed to invest in getting things right. I noticed an interactive customer feedback board in my local Tesco a couple of weeks ago – not only are they saying they are going to do something, they have acted immediately.

How many of us would like to work for a senior leadership team that has done this? If Tesco can, any organisation in the UK can. Now if we can just to get to a place where they do so without any more damage to the high street………..

So you decide – Tesco: hero or villain?

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