£2.5K TO £5KTOPICS
Customer Service & CRM, Retailing
SPEECH TITLES
Delivering the right customer experience
Cutting costs and improving service
Engaging the whole team in change
BIOGRAPHY
Andrew McMillan spent over 20 years with John Lewis Partnership, the last eight responsible for leading customer service across the department store division. Now an advisor to both private and public sectors, he is widely recognised for developing John Lewis' much admired sales and service culture - consistently held up as an example of best practice.
Andrew started as a management trainee in Brent Cross. He moved up the ladder to head a department in the flagship Oxford Street store, before switching from the shop floor to the Intelligence Team. They acted as an internal consultancy across all areas of service including strategy, product differentiation, demographics and customer analysis by catchment area.
In presentations Andrew explains that customer service quality should reflect internal culture; you can't just teach it and stick it onto an unhappy organisation. And in a climate where many are making cuts, he argues that creating a distinct, discernable and appealing personality for a business through the employees, by viewing them as an asset rather than a cost, can deliver a degree of long lasting competitive differentiation few achieve, but many aspire to.
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Q&A
JLA: What are the key principles of customer service?
AM: Customer service tends to reflect an organisation's internal culture, so treat staff as you would like your customers to be treated. You can't just teach it and stick it on the outside of an unhappy organisation.
JLA: What can big business learn from SMEs?
AM: Many large organisations still need to learn what small businesses have always known: your people are your prime asset. After all, why do we always return to the same hairdresser? It's usually less to do with price, and everything to do with the power of personal relationships.
JLA: How can a business quickly transform its reputation for customer service?
AM: Improving unfriendly processes will make your business more attractive, but that alone won't bring loyalty and advocacy. Only a consistently engaging experience will lead to customers identifying you as special and different.
JLA: What about the power of social networking?
AM: Social networking is moving the control of brands from owner to customer. Type your business into Google followed by 'complaint' or 'review', and you will see who has the power over reputation.
JLA: How do you motivate people when pay rises are out of the question?
AM: In the current climate, security and working for an organisation that treats its employees as assets is far more motivating than a minimal pay rise.
JLA: What can the public sector learn from business?
AM: Huge effort is focused on activity that brings very little return. Instead of across-the-board cuts, changes in process could enable services to be maintained, or even improved, at lower cost. (Having said that, businesses can learn more from the public sector than they might choose to believe.)
JLA: What has recession taught us about consumer behaviour?
AM: Don't try to be all things to all people. Come up with a compelling proposition for your target customers and aim to win on perceived value, not just price.