Saturday 12 February 2011

A Customer Service Revolution?

Mary Portas' current show Secret Shopper, whilst meeting with some critiscism as to the approach (such as from Furniture Village chief Peter Harrison who said in Retail Week that it was "morally indefensible" and a "biased, ill-informed perversion of the truth"- come on say what you really mean Peter), has a noble aim.

To highlight the poor standards of customer service in British retail, and start a revolution to bring about change- one retailer at a time!



She's right on this of course, but surely this issue isn't as black and white as it seems.

Yes when we're spending a lot, or more than we could be elsewhere, then we expect to be accorded a certain level of service and respect. But if we're not prepared to spend more than £2 on a t-shirt from Primark, do we have a right to expect the same attentiveness?
Or should we instead be considering how they afford to keep those t-shirts so cheap (I'm not even going to go into the production end but it starts there!), and whether part of that cost saving is by  under-staffing stores and paying shop workers lower than average salaries- shop workers who we then apparently expect to lavish us, and their store, with care and attention? Motivated staff require investment, and yes perhaps you can argue these retailers should prioritise price and service equally... But which retailers excel at both? I think there is always a trade off at some level..

I was going to do a bottom five retailers for customer service, but upon reflection, I reckon if you're only willing to pay Primark and H&M prices for your clothes, then I don't think you should expect John Lewis service. And if you do want John Lewis levels of service, then you know what you can do?

Vote with your feet and spend your pound with a retailer who 'cares'..

Take Precautions!

A very belated happy new year from See All Her Faces, who didn't make any New Year resolutions, but clearly should've done- to get back on her blog!

Anyway, an interesting of news I've mentioned on Twitter (@seeallherfaces1) and Facebook (see the badge to the right of this post)

Analysis of records on the CIFAS Staff Fraud Database for 2010 have revealed there has been no change in the overall number of cases of proven insider fraud year on year.... But...


Interestingly, the balance of types of fraud has shifted- with a huge 62.5% increase in cases of "unlawfully obtaining or disclosing personal data", which is a very worrying devleopment- we're talking alot more serious than hands in the till, we're talking theft of your personal information for use in identity theft and identiy fraud by potentially serious criminals.

So of course you should continue to always be vigiliant when using cards in store- make sure they never go out of your site, make sure the store copy of your card receipt goes back in the till, and store or shred your own copy etc.... But also- consider what other personal information you may be giving out a lot more casually in store, on seemingly innocuous forms- mailing lists, competition entries, store card applications... With your name, address, other unique identifiers such as date of birth etc may be all that are required.

Of course the duty of responsibility falls on retailers to for example be PCI (payment card industry) compliant, and make sure your personal information is safe and secure, but these new figures demonstrate that we can't rely on them alone- take steps!