Where's Your Customer?

What if the service level your customers expect has very little to do with what they're spending? In this episode, I'm joined by Dan Cuomo, a leader who's led marketing and operations across Wickes, Bath Store, Signet, and now Wheels Up (private aviation). That's a career that spans the full length of what luxury retail customer experience can mean, from a £20 transaction to a £20,000 one. What Dan's noticed across it all is that price is a surprisingly unreliable guide to what's actually at stake for the customer. Emotional investment is the better measure and that doesn't always follow the invoice value. We talk about the invisible voices customers carry into their purchasing decisions (the partners, the friends, the Instagram saves). We get into what happens to service design when operations stop being the delivery side of things and become the experience itself. And Dan is honest about what transfers across all those sectors, and what really doesn't. There's also a very honest account of what service recovery looks like at three in the morning when a private flight hits a problem, and why the customers who forgive those moments are the ones who felt you were already talking to them before they had to call you. Thanks for Listening! If this episode resonated with you, I'd love to hear your thoughts. What's one insight you're planning to put into practice, or one thing you're taking away from the conversation with Dan? Let's connect: find me on LinkedIn Connect with Dan Cuomo on LinkedIn Get the full show notes with all frameworks and resources mentioned at https://wheresyourcustomer.com/18  Never miss an episode – Subscribe to Where's Your Customer? on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts Found this valuable? Please leave a review, it helps other retail professionals discover these conversations and would honestly mean the world to me. Share this with someone who needs it – If someone in your network could benefit from today's conversation, please pass it on.    

When customers describe a good retail experience, the language is rarely spectacular. Instead, they say 'it was easy'. 'Quick'. 'I got what I came for'. 'I'd go back'. That's the language of something working consistently and seamlessly in the background.  So in this episode, I've been thinking about what's underneath those experiences. Not what great retail customer experience looks like on the surface, but the conditions that make it possible and what happens when those conditions start to degrade under cost and complexity pressure. I've pulled out 5 conditions: Orientation, Clarity, Momentum, Trust, and Continuity. Orientation covers what happens in the very first moments of any retail encounter, and how the decompression zone affects dwell time and initial capture. Clarity looks at decision confidence and the counterintuitive research showing that reducing choices can actually increase satisfaction and spend. Momentum covers the friction that kills transactions, including the £38 billion lost by UK retailers to basket abandonment in 2024, alongside Barclays Partner Finance's research on 'positive friction' that builds confidence rather than eroding it. Trust examines the link between frontline conditions and customer loyalty and why you can't communicate your way into credibility. Continuity addresses what happens after the purchase, including ParcelLab's finding that 80% of UK retailers stop communicating with customers once a parcel is dispatched. What connects all five is a measurement question. Most retail organisations have metrics for what's visible. Far fewer have a reliable way to notice when a condition is degrading before the numbers start to move. Thanks for Listening! Did anything resonate with you from today's conversation? I'd love to know, particularly where you're seeing these conditions showing up in your own organisation. Get the full show notes with all frameworks and resources mentioned at https://wheresyourcustomer.com/17 Never miss an episode – Subscribe to Where's Your Customer? on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts Found this valuable? Please leave a review, it helps other retail professionals discover these conversations and would honestly mean the world to me Connect with me – Find me on LinkedIn or visit wheresyourcustomer.com for more customer service insights and resources. Share this with someone who needs it – If someone in your network works in retail customer experience, please share this episode with them    

In 2016, I was studying for my customer experience professional qualification and filling a little red book with notes. Six core competencies. Frameworks. Models. The language of CX. I loved every bit of it. Ten years on, I still use those foundations. But the list of what a CX leader needs to understand has grown considerably, and I keep wondering whether what we're describing is still one role, or whether it's become several. In this episode, I look at what's changed around customer experience leadership: the economic pressure, the rise of AI as infrastructure rather than experiment, and the way experience decisions are increasingly being made in technology programmes and commercial planning, often before the CX function is even in the room. I look at what's happening in UK retail specifically, examples from John Lewis, M&S, Tesco, Next, Boots, Currys, and Sainsbury's, and what the pattern across all of them suggests about where CX capability is actually being built right now. And I sit with the tension at the heart of all of this: whether the expanding brief is a sign that the role is under strain, or a sign that it's finally being taken seriously. Both readings are probably true somewhere. This isn't an episode with conclusions. It's one worth thinking through.     Thanks for Listening! If this episode resonates with you, I'd love to connect and hear your thoughts about how Customer Experience leadership is changing. Get the full show notes with all frameworks and resources mentioned at https://wheresyourcustomer.com/16  Never miss an episode – Subscribe to Where's Your Customer? on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts Found this valuable? Please leave me a review, it helps other retail professionals discover these conversations and would honestly mean the world to me. Connect with me – Find me on LinkedIn or visit wheresyourcustomer.com for more customer service insights and resources. Share this with someone who needs it – If someone in your network is wrestling with customer service challenges, please share this episode with them  

When Retail Teams Play, Experiences Come Alive There's something you notice in retail environments that work. The experience feels alive. Responsive. Like the people behind it had permission to actually think. In this episode, I've been sitting with a question about what separates those experiences from the ones that feel flat - ok, but mechanical. And I think it might be whether teams have been allowed to play. Not play in a frivolous sense. Play in the sense of having room to experiment, to try things that might not work, to respond to what's actually in front of them rather than following the script. I look at what's happening at Lego, Hamleys, and Selfridges (retailers who've made experience design part of their operating model) and explore Greg McKeown's argument that play isn't a cultural nice-to-have but a genuine strategic advantage. I also sit with the harder question: whether retail's relentless focus on optimisation is gradually removing the very conditions that produce experiences customers actually remember. And I try to be honest about the counterargument too, because this isn't straightforward. I don't have a tidy answer. But I think it's worth paying attention to.   Thanks for Listening! Did anything resonate with you from today's conversation? I'd love to know, particularly where you're seeing preventable service failures in your own organisation. Get the full show notes with all frameworks and resources mentioned at https://wheresyourcustomer.com/15  Never miss an episode – Subscribe to Where's Your Customer? on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts Found this valuable? Please leave a review, it helps other retail professionals discover these conversations and would honestly mean the world to me Connect with me – Find me on LinkedIn or visit wheresyourcustomer.com for more customer service insights and resources. Share this with someone who needs it – If someone in your network is wrestling with customer service challenges, please share this episode with them  

When did sitting in your car too exhausted to go inside become normal? If you've ever finished a full day and realised you spent it responding to everything whilst thinking about nothing, you're not alone. Retail manager burnout has reached crisis levels, with happiness across UK retail falling to 58% in 2025. In this episode, I explore: Where your time actually disappears to (spoiler: it's not where you think) Why retail managers lose 5-8 hours per week just documenting work instead of doing it The structural shift that's dropped manager happiness 11% in three months (below their teams for the first time ever) How retail crime is adding invisible weight to every decision you make Four things steadier retail managers do differently: Stop carrying decisions that aren't theirs Have someone outside their organisation who genuinely understands Protect their mental bandwidth (using "not yet" instead of "no") Stop performing certainty when they're still working things out Where technology can actually help: voice transcription, automated reporting, AI-flagged patterns, not to do more, but to create thinking space. One practical step: Track just one day this week (a 'normal' workday). Not to judge yourself, but to see where your time goes. Then ask: if I could give one hour back to myself, where would I want it to go? Because retail manager burnout isn't something you solve with a podcast episode. But you might notice one pattern. One place where your attention is going that it doesn't need to. And that might be enough to shift something.   Thanks for Listening! Did anything resonate with you from today's conversation? I'd love to know, particularly where you're losing or reworking thinking time in your calendar. Get the full show notes with all frameworks and resources mentioned at https://wheresyourcustomer.com/14  Never miss an episode – Subscribe to Where's Your Customer? on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts Found this valuable? Please leave a review, it helps other retail professionals discover these conversations and would honestly mean the world to me Connect with me – Find me on LinkedIn or visit wheresyourcustomer.com for more customer service insights and resources. Share this with someone who needs it – If someone in your network is wrestling with customer service challenges, please share this episode with them  

I was reading an interview with B&Q's retail director about their showroom upgrades. Beautiful bathroom and kitchen displays, scent diffusers, and aspirational spaces designed to lift the customer experience. But what caught my attention was their two-entrance strategy, appealing to customers who were NOT interested in the showroom spaces.  On the surface, it's practical. But I think it reveals something deeper: customers change as they move through their projects. Someone covered in door dust, midway through a DIY job, needs something different from someone in the dreaming stage, browsing inspiration. The separate entrance acknowledges this. Same retailer, same goal, but different intelligence for different moments. That's what this episode explores. How two different channels (physical stores and online shopping) have developed their own ways of reading customers, and how most of the time, these two sides don't know what the other one sees. 6 Patterns I've Noticed Nudges vs Feeling: Online uses behavioural economics to guide decisions. Scarcity messages, social proof, AI recommendations. But in physical stores, the intelligence is different. It's whether someone covered in plaster dust feels like they belong. Pattern vs Presence: John Lewis generates 100 million outfit combinations per night through AI. Lush gives staff freedom to hand over a product if someone's having a bad day. Both are personalisation, one at scale, one in a single moment. Intent vs Hesitation: 75% of UK shoppers say sizing feels inconsistent online, so they order multiple sizes. That hesitation costs UK retailers £34.4 billion per year in basket abandonment. Currys addressed this with Shop Live, connecting online shoppers with store experts via video chat. Friction as Failure vs Care: Online shoppers abandon a site if checkout takes more than 3 seconds. But in physical stores, we'll queue for nearly 6 minutes. IKEA's self-assembly isn't efficient, but that effort is what makes you value the furniture. Path vs Memory: We remember the peak and the end of an experience, not the average. IKEA's ice cream stand at the exit rewrites the whole trip. Digital retail usually ends with an order confirmation page. Ignite vs Validate: TikTok Shop became the UK's 4th-largest beauty retailer in 2024. Trends ignite online, but physical stores are where the spark gets tested. Two kinds of intelligence working in the same organisation.  What if you got curious about what the other channel already knows?   Thanks for Listening! Did anything resonate with you from today's conversation?  Get the full show notes with all frameworks and resources mentioned at https://wheresyourcustomer.com/13  Never miss an episode – Subscribe to Where's Your Customer? on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Found this valuable? Please leave a review, it helps other retail professionals discover these conversations and would honestly mean the world to me. Connect with me – Find me on LinkedIn or visit wheresyourcustomer.com for more customer service insights and resources. Share this with someone who needs it – If someone in your network works in Customer Experience or Retail, and you think these insights would help them, please share this episode.   

Bury Market generated £1.1 million in annual surplus by staying traditional while others added wine bars and craft beer. Now they're building a £33 million Flexi Hall. What happens when you finally follow the playbook everyone else is using? While Crewe, Altrincham and several other town markets have transformed into food halls, Bury Market has remained the same. 150,000 weekly visitors. 70% of customers have been coming for over a decade. No Instagram moments. Just a traditional market.  But demographic reality has caught up. Their core customer base is ageing, and in autumn 2026 their new Flexi Hall will open to younger crowds. In this episode, I explore what Bury Market protected while everyone else transformed, the 10-minute queue that built customer loyalty nobody else valued, and the uncomfortable question facing every retail professional: when following the obvious route means losing what made you valuable in the first place. Key Topics: - Why Bury Market stayed traditional while competitors modernized - The friction that creates customer loyalty vs. the friction that kills it - Coach tourism strategy nobody else wanted - Demographic reality no amount of loyalty can solve - What "retailtainment while retaining independent spirit" means   Thanks for Listening! Did anything resonate with you from today's conversation? I'd love to know. Do you love a market too? Get the full show notes with all frameworks and resources mentioned at https://wheresyourcustomer.com/12  Never miss an episode – Subscribe to Where's Your Customer? on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts Found this valuable? Please leave a review, it helps other retail professionals discover these conversations and would honestly mean the world to me Connect with me – Find me on LinkedIn or visit wheresyourcustomer.com for more customer service insights and resources. Share this with someone who needs it – If someone in your network is wrestling with customer service challenges, please share this episode with them  

Are smaller retailers winning the AI race? While 99% of large UK retailers have AI expertise in-house, 31% of small retailers are already using AI daily. The competitive advantage isn't about resources, it's about friction, proximity, and speed of testing. I've been learning about AI at quite a pace recently, and it made me wonder: if individuals can move this quickly, what does that mean for smaller retailers? The AI Adoption Paradox Having AI expertise isn't the same as using AI day to day. One group has resources and roadmaps. The other has the freedom to test on Tuesday and see results by Wednesday. Examples That Show the Pattern Virgin Wines removes wine selection uncertainty by matching sensory attributes to individual preferences. Abelini, an independent Hatton Garden jeweller, uses AR/AI so customers can see how rings look on their own hands. ListAid helps charity shop volunteers price donations accurately in under a minute. Finney's in Aberdeen makes three generations of jewellery expertise accessible through digital tools. Happy and Glorious in Canterbury uses AI for admin tasks, freeing time for customer work. The pattern? AI sits right next to decisions - customer decisions and colleague decisions. That proximity matters because when AI is close to the decision, outcomes change quickly. Why Proximity Wins In larger organisations, AI often lives deeper in infrastructure - optimising systems, forecasting demand. That work matters, but it's further from the moments where customers hesitate or teams feel unsure. Smaller retailers have fewer layers between problem and solution. They notice issues sooner, test faster, keep what works, drop what doesn't. That ability to connect problem, experiment, and outcome is where the advantage lies. Journey Mapping Reveals Use Cases When you look closely at your customer journey (into the detail of what actually happens) friction points stand out. Those are moments where people hesitate, teams second-guess, or customers disappear. Once you see those moments clearly, AI use cases become obvious. Your AI plan doesn't need to run the whole business. It needs to support decisions causing friction for customers and colleagues. Tackle things moment by moment - that's your roadmap. The Real Advantage The competitive advantage isn't about AI. It's about noticing where customers hesitate, where staff feel anxious, where you're losing time. It's having the freedom to do something about it quickly. The difference shows up when technology supports real decisions. When it helps someone choose with confidence. When it removes guesswork from pressured moments. When it gives people time to focus on what matters. That's when AI has impact. That's when it gives you a competitive advantage. Thanks for Listening! Get the full show notes with all frameworks and resources mentioned at https://wheresyourcustomer.com/11 Need help with customer journey mapping? Let's chat. Never miss an episode – Subscribe to Where's Your Customer? on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts Found this valuable? Please leave a review, it helps other retail professionals discover these conversations and would honestly mean the world to me Connect with me – Find me on LinkedIn or visit wheresyourcustomer.com for more customer service insights and resources. Share this with someone who needs it – Please help share this podcast with other retail professionals who might find it useful.   

UK retail customer service hit a 14-year low in 2024. But is the problem really about better recovery, or is it about prevention? In this episode, I share a personal story about three trips to fix a basic mistake, then examine the £7.3 billion monthly cost of preventable service failures across UK retail. We look at why UK employees spend 20% of their time fixing problems that shouldn't have happened, explore the real sources of service failures (it's not what you think), and examine two retailers who've figured out prevention: Sainsbury's with 5% voluntary turnover, and Timpson with their two-rule approach to customer service. In this episode: Why brilliant service recovery still loses 50-70% of customers The turnover quality spiral nobody talks about  Three patterns for preventing failures: systems design, measuring what matters, and technology that prevents How to redirect recovery spending toward prevention What Saturday afternoon looks like in prevention mode vs crisis mode Key insight: When a customer encounters even one service problem, satisfaction drops 20 points. We've got brilliant at recovery, but recovery happens after the damage is done. The retailers seeing sustained improvement aren't getting better at fixing things. They're redesigning systems so things don't break in the first place. Thanks for Listening! Did anything resonate with you from today's conversation? I'd love to know, particularly where you're seeing preventable service failures in your own organisation. Get the full show notes with all frameworks and resources mentioned at https://wheresyourcustomer.com/10  Never miss an episode – Subscribe to Where's Your Customer? on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts Found this valuable? Please leave a review, it helps other retail professionals discover these conversations and would honestly mean the world to me Connect with me – Find me on LinkedIn or visit WheresYourCustomer.com  for more customer service insights and resources. Share this with someone who needs it – If someone in your network is wrestling with customer service challenges, please share this episode with them  

Customers don't search the way they used to. They start on TikTok, or Instagram, ask ChatGPT for recommendations, or head straight to Amazon without even thinking about your website.   In this episode, I talk with Paul Culshaw, a strategist with over 25 years in SEO who's worked with major UK retailers, including Littlewoods and N Brown. Paul reveals why retail SEO strategy isn't really about search engines anymore. It's about understanding how people make decisions, where they go for information, and what builds their trust.   We explore:   - How customer discovery has fragmented across platforms (and why that matters for category managers) - The multi-visit buyer journey and what content you need at each stage - Why SEO is actually customer experience, not just a technical marketing channel - Category page optimisation as a practical starting point - EE-A-T principles (Experience, Expertise, Authority, Trust) and why reviews matter more than ever - How to get buy-in from teams who don't care about search - The four biggest mistakes retailers make with SEO - Why AI-driven discovery is the opportunity right now (think October 1998 for the internet)   If you've been treating SEO as someone else's problem, this conversation will change how you think about customers and product discovery.   Guest: Paul Culshaw   Paul Shaw is a certified business strategist and AI integration specialist who's spent 25 years in online marketing. He's worked in-house with Littlewoods Shop Direct, N Brown (JD Williams, Simply Be), and agency-side with clients across retail. He now helps businesses prepare for AI-driven discovery through his Authority Engine framework.   Connect with Paul: - Website: https://www.paulculshaw.com/ - Instagram: @CoachPaulCulshaw   Thanks for Listening!   Did anything resonate with you from today's conversation about retail SEO strategy? I'd love to know.   Get the full show notes with all the links and resources at https://wheresyourcustomer.com/9     Let's connect – Find me on Linkedinlinkedin.com/in/jo-williams-ccxp   Never miss an episode – Subscribe to Where's Your Customer? on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.   Found this valuable? Please leave a review. It helps other retail professionals discover these conversations.   Share the knowledge – If someone in your network could benefit from rethinking their approach to search, please share this episode with them.  

Something shifts when you step back from work, doesn't it? Last summer, I had my first child, and whilst I knew maternity leave would be transformative personally, I didn't expect it to reshape the customer experience lessons I'd carry forward in my career. Between feeds and nappies, I found pockets of time to read nine customer experience books. What struck me wasn't just the individual insights, but the patterns emerging between them. I found Customer experience lessons that most of us know but struggle to act on consistently. The 9 Customer Experience Lessons Lesson 1: Reactive Customer Experience Is Already Too Late. Most businesses wait for customers to complain before taking action. But those winning customer loyalty build intelligence into operations so they can act before problems become customer problems. Lesson 2: Culture Beats Strategy Every Time. Your culture determines CX, not your strategy. Employees need authority to solve problems in the moment. Lesson 3: Customer Understanding Requires Discipline, Not Just Data. Having data isn't the same as understanding customers. Real insight comes from weaving together feedback, personas, and journey mapping. Lesson 4: Customer Journey Maps Are Worthless Without Action. Beautiful maps become wall art without clear decisions and committed action. Know what your map will change before you create it. Lesson 5: Excellence Lives in the Basics. Great Customer Experiences aren't built on surprise and delight tactics, they're created through consistency and removing friction from fundamental operations. Lesson 6: Metrics Follow Experience, Not the Other Way Round. Fix the experience and metrics improve. Chase metrics and you often make experiences worse. Lesson 7: Customers Decide With Emotion, Then Justify With Logic. Emotional triggers matter more than feature comparisons. Reduce cognitive effort rather than adding functionality. Lesson 8: Physical Spaces Shape Behaviour. Every design choice influences how customers feel and act. Your environment tells a story, make sure it's the right one. Lesson 9: CX Is Built in Everyday Moments. Customer loyalty is determined by small interactions: answered phones, kept promises, empowered teams who care. What Connects These Customer Experience Lessons These customer experience lessons reveal that CX isn't about tactics or technology, it's about people. Understanding customers deeply, empowering teams, and getting basics right consistently. My Reading List The nine books behind these customer experience lessons: The New Customer Experience Management - Ivaylo Yorgov The Customer of the Future - Blake Morgan Store Design and Visual Merchandising - Claus Ebster & Marion Garaus Creating a CX That Sings - Jennifer L. Clinehens The Ten Principles Behind Great Customer Experiences - Matt Watkinson Customers Know You Suck - Debbie Levitt Decoded: The Science Behind Why We Buy - Phil Barden Customer Understanding - Annette Franz Moments of Truth - Jan Carlzon Get the full show notes with all research sources and detailed insights at wheresyourcustomer.com/8 Thanks for Listening! Which of these customer experience lessons resonated most with you? I'd love to know. Subscribe for more – Don't miss future episodes! Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. Please leave a review – If you found value in this episode, a quick review helps other retail professionals discover these conversations too. Connect with me – Find me on LinkedIn or visit whereyourcustomer.com for more customer experience resources and insights.  

I don't know about you, but I've always got a job list on top of my day job list. Little things like booking eye tests, picking up paint samples, or nipping to the supermarket because you've run out of Calpol. I love it when I'm on a mission in a shop and everything just works. But then there's the flip side, when you can't find what you want, there's no one around to help, or worse, you finally decide on something only to find it's out of stock. I needed something from the pharmacy recently, so I nipped out to Asda in my lunch break. Guess what? It was closed for lunch - when people actually need a pharmacy. It got me thinking about how some retailers aren't understanding what's going on in their customers' lives and how they're either supporting their experiences or disrupting them. What We Cover in This Episode My 5-Stage Customer Journey Framework. Most journey mapping starts when customers first interact with your brand. I prefer starting earlier, with the customer's actual need. My framework covers: the need trigger, planning the shop, going shopping, the purchase, and usage. Running Effective Workshops. The magic happens when you bring the right people together with clear objectives. I love facilitating these workshops; they're creative, observational, and analytical all at the same time. Essential Mapping Terms. Touchpoints, pain points, moments of truth, and emotional potential. Understanding these four elements helps you create maps that actually drive results. Common Mistakes to Avoid. I've seen teams make the same mistakes repeatedly. Don't overcomplicate it, don't ignore the data, don't forget post-purchase, and remember you're creating a customer journey map, not a process map. Quick Wins That Work. You don't need a complete transformation to see results. Small changes like simplified checkouts or clearer signage often create surprisingly big improvements. A Retailer's Lesson The Body Shop noticed mobile traffic growing but sales lagging. Instead of accepting that mobile customers just browse, they mapped the actual mobile experience. What they found was interesting. Customers wanted to buy, but the navigation was too confusing. Once they fixed those pain points, they saw a 28% increase in year-on-year orders. That's the power of really understanding and improving the points in your customer's experience. Key Takeaways Start journey maps with customer needs, not brand interactions. This reveals insights traditional lifecycle mapping misses Successful workshops need clear objectives, customer-facing team members, real data, and a consistent customer perspective You're building layers: actions, thoughts, emotions, touchpoints, pain points, and opportunities Common mistakes include overcomplicating, ignoring data, forgetting post-purchase, and slipping into process mapping Small changes often deliver surprisingly big improvements in customer satisfaction Journey mapping isn't one and done - successful retailers revisit maps regularly Resources Mentioned The Body Shop mobile optimisation case study Digital mapping tools: Miro and Lucidchart for remote teams Customer journey mapping workshop templates Get Customer Journey Mapping Support If you're struggling and want some help creating a customer journey map in your business, I'd love to help you. Visit wheresyourcustomer.com/cjm for more details, and you can book a call with me. Thanks for Listening! Did anything resonate with you from today's conversation?  Get the full show notes with all the links and resources mentioned at wheresyourcustomer.com/7 Subscribe for more – Don't miss future episodes! Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. Please leave a review – If you found value in this episode, a quick review would help other retail professionals discover these conversations. Connect with me – Visit wheresyourcustomer.com for more customer experience resources and tips.

What Department Stores Teach Us About Customer Experience Last week I found myself in Darlington with time to spare, wandering into a House of Fraser that felt tired and unloved. Sitting in their quiet cafe, mostly surrounded by pensioners, I couldn't stop thinking about how different these places used to feel when I'd visit them with my nan. Department stores used to feel magical. Someone had curated what deserved your attention. Staff knew their departments inside out. You could discover something unexpected wandering from cosmetics to homeware to fashion. There was trust, too. They stood behind what they sold. So what went wrong? And more importantly, what can the survivors teach us about creating customer experiences that actually work? The research tells a stark story. In 2003, Debenhams was loaded with £1.2 billion of debt after a private equity buyout. Refurbishment spending plummeted by 77%. Meanwhile, John Lewis invested £800 million in their stores and tripled profits. The difference? One extracted value, the other created it. What We Cover in This Episode The real reasons beloved department stores collapsed (hint: it wasn't just online competition) How private equity's asset-stripping approach destroyed Debenhams, BHS, and House of Fraser Why John Lewis invested £800 million and tripled profits whilst competitors failed Selfridges' "sensorial experience" strategy that online shopping can't replicate Harvey Nichols' "large boutique" approach that jumped them from 21st to 3rd in customer experience rankings Six strategies every retail business needs to create experiences customers actually want The Department Store Landscape Today Some department stores haven't collapsed dramatically - they've just faded. House of Fraser shrank from 59 stores to just 14. Kendall's in Manchester, that beautiful Art Deco building locals still call by its original name, faces conversion to offices after years of closure threats. These stores still open their doors each day. Staff still turn up. Customers still browse the aisles. But everyone seems to be going through the motions. They've stopped listening to customers. They've stopped evolving. Meanwhile, the survivors show us exactly what works. Six Strategies That Create Winning Customer Experiences 1. Choose Your Lane and Own It Harvey Nichols chose the large boutique experience. Selfridges chose sensory overload. John Lewis chose brilliant fundamentals. Each made a clear choice about who they serve and how. None tried to be everything to everyone. 2. Create Destinations, Not Just Distribution Points Successful stores host workshops, exclusive events, and create genuine reasons to visit beyond buying products. They integrate hospitality - cafes, spaces to breathe, places to spend time. John Lewis is testing cookery schools with Jamie Oliver and rooftop bars. 3. Make Technology Serve Human Connection Smart mirrors, AI recommendations, and mobile payments are just expected now. But the magic happens when technology helps your team serve customers better. Harvey Nichols connects online browsers with in-store experts through video chat. 4. Develop Experience Facilitators The best stores evolve their people from checkout operators to consultants and problem solvers. They use customer insights to help staff create moments of discovery and delight. 5. Become Part of Your Community's Fabric Support local causes, create shared experiences, and strengthen social connections around your location. Stores that become integral to local life earn loyalty that pure transaction can't buy. 6. Perfect the Physical-Digital Dance Customers don't shop online or offline anymore - they do both simultaneously. Click and collect must work flawlessly. Real-time inventory needs visibility across every channel. Key Takeaways Department store failures weren't caused by online competition alone - they were caused by extracting value instead of creating it John Lewis, Selfridges, and Harvey Nichols each chose different strategies, but all invested in customer experience The stores that survived defined their unique value proposition and stuck to it Technology should enhance human connections, not replace them Creating destinations rather than distribution points earns customer loyalty These lessons apply to any retail business, not just department stores Resources Mentioned Centre for Retail Research - UK retail closure and job loss statistics John Lewis Partnership - £800 million store investment programme and profit growth Harvey Nichols - 360-degree service proposition and customer experience rankings Selfridges - "sensorial experience" philosophy and store transformation House of Fraser decline - from 59 stores down to 14 What's Next? The magic hasn't disappeared from retail. It just needs redefining for how we live today. Think about your own customer experience strategy: When did you last examine whether what you're offering still matters to the people you serve? When did you last invest in getting better rather than just maintaining what you have? What magic could you create that nobody else offers? Found This Valuable? If this episode sparked ideas for your retail strategy, please leave a quick review sharing what resonated most. Your insights help other retail professionals discover these conversations. Complete show notes and resources: https://wheresyourcustomer.com/6

The most customer-focused retail leaders aren't waiting for formal AI training. They're building their own AI literacy to serve customers better, and you can too. If you've been seeing posts about AI transforming retail, hearing colleagues mention ChatGPT, or watching competitors get smarter with AI, you're not alone. Spending on AI technologies in retail is projected to reach $85 billion by 2032, with 78% of organisations globally now using AI in some form. Right now, individual professionals are learning faster than their companies are rolling out formal training programs. When your company does start deploying AI more broadly (and they will), you want to be the person who can guide those decisions thoughtfully. What We Cover in This Episode What AI literacy really means for customer-focused retail leaders (it's not about becoming a tech expert) A practical 4-week learning roadmap you can start today How to experiment with AI tools safely whilst respecting company guidelines Why AI literacy makes you a better customer-focused leader Real examples of how retail professionals are using AI to serve customers better Your 4-Week AI Learning Roadmap Phase 1: Understanding AI Fundamentals (Week 1) Download ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini and spend 15 minutes daily having general conversations. Get comfortable with how these tools think and respond. Learn basic vocabulary like prompts, hallucinations, and context. Phase 2: Work-Adjacent Experiments (Week 2) Create hypothetical customer scenarios and test AI responses. Practice with public information only. Try different types of requests to build intuition about what these tools excel at. Phase 3: Real Work Challenges (Week 3) Pick one recurring challenge; analysing feedback, meeting prep, or drafting communications for example. Use AI as a thinking partner whilst maintaining human judgment and decision-making. Phase 4: Building Team Awareness (Ongoing) Start conversations with your team about AI experiments. Share learnings in team meetings. Model responsible experimentation for others to follow. Key Takeaways AI literacy for retail professionals means understanding what these tools can and can't do, not becoming a tech expert You can build AI skills responsibly without formal training or breaking company rules The goal is to become a bridge between technology possibilities and customer needs Leaders with AI literacy can spot opportunities, ask better questions, and guide change thoughtfully Professional AI tools (£20/month) are worth the investment for serious skill-building Resources Mentioned ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini AI tools ChatGPT Plus, Claude Pro, and Gemini Advanced (paid versions) Stanford AI Index Report on global AI adoption rates Forbes' research on generative AI workplace usage What's Next? Start with one small experiment this week. Download an AI tool on your phone and spend 10-15 minutes daily getting familiar with it. Don't overthink it, just start building familiarity whilst keeping customers at the centre of everything you learn. Found this useful? Don't let these insights get buried in your busy week. Subscribe now and get each new episode delivered straight to your podcast app. If today's episode sparked an idea or solved a problem you've been working on, a quick review would mean the world and help fellow retail professionals find customer-focused ideas, too.   Tired of staring at customer data that tells you nothing useful? I've created "10 AI Shortcuts for Understanding Your Customers" specifically for retail professionals who know their data holds answers but don't have time to become data scientists. Download your free guide at wheresyourcustomer.com/ai-shortcuts and start making sense of your customer insights today.   

Walking into leadership meetings with glowing NPS scores only to face questions about declining repeat purchases? Most retail teams measure customer experience as if it were still 2015, celebrating snapshots whilst missing the complex omnichannel reality customers actually live in. In this episode, Jo shares four business-critical CX metrics that connect directly to revenue and give you predictive power. Perfect for retail professionals, CX managers, and marketers who need to prove ROI to skeptical leadership teams.   What You'll Learn: • Why Customer Effort Score predicts churn better than NPS • How First Contact Resolution drives both trust and efficiency • Why Customer Lifetime Value transforms CX from cost centre to profit driver • How to build predictive dashboards that spot problems before they hit your bottom line Key Takeaways ✓ Customer Effort Score (CES) - Your friction detection system that predicts churn more accurately than traditional metrics ✓ First Contact Resolution (FCR) - Target 85%+ to build trust whilst reducing operational costs by up to 16% ✓ Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) - Show leadership how CX improvements increase CLV by 15% to transform budget conversations ✓ Customer Loyalty Index - Measure what customers actually do with their wallets, not just what they say ✓ Leading indicators matter - Watch channel switching patterns and employee sentiment to predict problems before they affect your bottom line Episode Highlights [02:00] Why traditional CX metrics fail in omnichannel retail [04:15] The four metrics that predict business success [08:36] Real story: Why dealer relationships mattered more than CSAT at Jacuzzi [11:15] Tesco case study: Using weather data to predict behaviour (40% sales increase) [13:45] The hidden metric: How employee experience predicts customer satisfaction Resources Mentioned Gartner research: CX drives 66% of customer loyalty Forrester findings on customer experience ROI McKinsey data on retention vs acquisition costs Retail X research on customer switching behaviour Your Weekly Challenge Pick one metric from today's episode that you're not currently tracking. Set up basic measurement (even if it's manual) and start building your early warning system. Consider tracking customer effort scores for your checkout process or monitoring channel switching patterns. Start small, but start now. In six months, you'll either have predictive insights or you'll be dealing with problems after they've already hurt your customers. Connect & Subscribe Full show notes:wheresyourcustomer.com/4 Subscribe: Available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, and wherever you listen to podcasts Review: If you found value in today's episode, please leave a review. It really helps Jo reach other retail professionals like you, so they can discover these strategies too.   Behind every metric is a person trying to be understood. Go find them.

The customer loyalty strategy landscape is experiencing a seismic shift. The loyalty market is projected to reach £4 billion by 2029, but brand loyalty is eroding. In this episode, Jo explores why 45% of customers are abandoning beloved brands for cheaper alternatives and what industry leaders like Boots, ASDA, and McDonald's are doing to build connections instead of just collecting points. Perfect for retail marketers, operations managers, and CX professionals who suspect their loyalty programme optimisation is stuck in 2015. What You'll Learn • Why traditional loyalty programmes are failing - Discover the uncomfortable truth about discount habits vs. genuine loyalty • How AI is transforming customer retention - Learn from Boots' life-stage personalisation that increases engagement by 40% • The omnichannel trust factor - Why 76.6% of customers switch brands after just one poor delivery experience • Gamification that works - ASDA's mission-based approach and McDonald's enduring Monopoly success • Building trust through data transparency - How brands earn permission to personalise experiences Key Takeaways The Loyalty Paradox: Growing market (£2.56B to £4B by 2029) but declining brand loyalty Personalisation that matters: Boots uses life-stage data to serve relevant content and products, not just discounts Gamification evolution: ASDA's missions turn shopping into achievements; McDonald's Monopoly celebrates customer choice Trust through transparency: Explaining data use in human language generates higher opt-in rates The real shift: From keeping customers to becoming the kind of brand customers want to keep Featured Brands & Examples • Boots - Life-stage personalisation and data transparency • ASDA - Mission-based rewards programme innovation • McDonald's - Monopoly campaign mastery • Nectar - Customer education and security awareness • H&M - Aspirational loyalty with status and community Key Statistics • 81% of customers worried about finances (McKinsey) • 45% switching to own-label alternatives • AI-driven personalisation increases engagement 40% (Eagle Eye/Retail X) • 76.6% switch brands after one poor delivery experience • £19 million built up in ASDA cash pots since launch Questions for Reflection Are you building relationships or just managing transactions? Are communications based on what matters to customers now or what they bought last week? Is every touchpoint designed to build trust or just complete transactions? Are you creating spaces for customers to connect with your brand's values? Next Steps Pick one small experiment for next week: Personalise email subject lines based on purchase patterns Follow up after delivery to ensure satisfaction Create a simple challenge that makes regular visits more rewarding Resources 🎧 Shownotes: wheresyourcustomer.com/3 About the Host Jo Williams is a certified CX strategist with over 20 years in retail and trade marketing. Her mission is to help retail professionals create experiences that make customers feel valued. Subscribe & Review If this episode gave you a fresh perspective on building customer connections, please leave a review on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen. Your review helps reach other retail professionals who want to discover practical strategies that work.  

Have you ever sat in a meeting, staring at spreadsheets full of customer data, and realised nobody's actually asking about the customers themselves? Not where they are in your sales funnel, but who they actually are as people?   I'm Jo, and I've been there more times than I'd like to admit. Years of helping retail teams create better customer experiences taught me something crucial: it's frighteningly easy to lose sight of the humans you're working for when you're buried in KPIs and operational firefighting.   This teaser introduces Where's Your Customer? - a podcast for retail professionals who know customer experience matters but aren't quite sure how to improve it with the time, budget, and resources they have.   The full podcast launches in a few weeks. We'll explore practical customer journey mapping, aligning teams, proving value to leadership, and turning insights into action. But underneath it all, we'll keep coming back to the people at the centre of everything you do.   If you're ready to stop losing your customers in the noise of daily operations and start seeing them clearly again, hit follow now.   Thanks for Listening! Get ready for the full launch and visit at www.wheresyourcustomer.com  Subscribe now so you don't miss the first full episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen.

Welcome to Where's Your Customer! I'm Jo Williams, and in this debut episode, I'm sharing why most retail customer experience strategies fail and a proven 3-part framework that actually works.   After 20+ years in retail marketing and customer experience, I've learned that 80% of companies think they deliver great CX, but only 8% of customers agree. That massive gap is costing retailers sales, loyalty, and reputation.   I share a personal story from my Asda checkout days that changed how I think about retail connections, I break down what customer experience really means (spoiler: it's not just good service), and I give you practical strategies you can implement immediately - regardless of your role. Key Takeaways ✅ The shocking CX gap: Why 92% of retail customer experience efforts miss the mark ✅ What CX really means: Everything your customer thinks, feels, and does because of how you show up as a brand ✅ The 3-part framework: Functionality (25%), Accessibility (25%), Emotion (50%) - and why emotions matter most ✅ Why it's everyone's job: How every department impacts customer experience ✅ Where to start: Simple questions that transform your customer-first thinking Perfect For Retail marketers and operations managers Category professionals and team leaders Anyone who wants to create experiences that make customers feel valued Professionals looking to become more customer-centric in their roles What I Cover [02:00] The Asda story that shaped my entire career perspective [04:00] The 80% vs 8% statistic that haunts the retail industry [05:00] My definition of customer experience (it's bigger than you think) [06:00] The McKinsey 3-part framework with real retail examples [07:00] Why customer experience is everyone's responsibility [08:00] Preview of what's coming in future episodes Resources Mentioned Bain & Company customer experience research McKinsey customer experience framework   Connect With Me Website:wheresyourcustomer.com LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/jo-williams-ccxp/   What's Next? Next week: "Understanding Your Customers Better So You Can Start Wowing Them" - I'll dive into customer personas, insights, and practical research techniques you can use immediately.     Found this useful? Don't let these insights get buried in your busy week. Subscribe now and get each new episode delivered straight to your podcast app. If today's episode sparked an idea or solved a problem you've been working on, I'd love it if you could leave a quick review. It would mean the world to me and it would help fellow retail professionals find customer-focused ideas, too. Thanks so much! A quick note: The insights and ideas I share come from research and years of working in retail teams just like yours. But every business is unique, so what works brilliantly for one retailer might need tweaking for another. Take what resonates, adapt what doesn't, and always trust your knowledge of your customers and culture.    

In this episode, I talk about the one habit every customer-centric professional needs to master: curiosity. I'm digging into why truly understanding customers is the heartbeat of any customer-centric retail leader, and I've got five strategies you can put into action this week. Plus, I'm sharing examples and tips that prove really listening to your customers isn't just nice to do—it's transformative. What You'll Learn Five Practical Customer Insight Strategies: Listen Smarter to Feedback - Why your frontline team holds the most valuable customer insights in your business Run Shopper Safaris - Experience your customer journey firsthand from Google search to checkout Mine Reviews for Truth - Turn unfiltered customer feedback into actionable improvements Use Search as Your Secret Listening Tool - Discover what customers want before they tell you Track Silent Signals - Read customer behaviour data to identify hidden friction points Featured Success Stories Tesco Club Card: How data-driven loyalty helped overtake Sainsbury's as market leader Space NK: Doubling turnover with hyper-local customer insights AO: Transforming Trustpilot scores through systematic review analysis B&Q: Converting 53 stores into "Digi Hubs" based on customer behaviour data Key Takeaways ✅ Your shop floor teams know customers better than any dashboard ✅ Basket abandonment averages 70% - but the reasons are fixable ✅ If three customers complain about something, hundreds thought it ✅ Search keywords reveal unfiltered customer intent ✅ The person who brings insights often earns the most influence Quick Implementation Tips Start a 15-minute weekly "story time" huddle with frontline teams Create a "Three Things We Heard" customer feedback board Try shopping your own store like a real customer would Use Google autofill and Answer the Public for keyword research Fix one customer friction point at a time and measure the impact Ready to transform your customer understanding? Pick one strategy to try this week and see how curiosity turns into credibility. Shownotes: wheresyourcustomer.com/2 Subscribe: Don't miss practical CX strategies that work in real retail environments