M&S. Stuck in a time warp.
Yesterday I did something I have not done for at least a couple of years. I went into Marks and Spencer.
I had ten minutes to spare before a meeting and popped into the Finsbury Pavement store on Moorgate in central London.
I suppose I was hoping to see some improvements from my last visit not least because someone I know and respect enormously has a senior position in womenswear and beauty design at M&S.
The experience was dire!
The photo above is what welcomes you as you walk in. Their new tag line of ‘Anything but ordinary’ is a classic case of the ‘image and the experience’ not matching. In this day and age there is simply no point in ‘saying one thing and doing another’. No doubt the product of some focus groups, this claim is only believable if everything else (not just the occasional product), but particularly the customer experience matches.
The display and merchandising is nothing but ordinary.
Round the corner was the same racks of trousers and even worse the shoe department still does a very good impression of a Soviet Department Store in Communist days. Dire maybe putting it mildly. It felt and looked desperate. Why on earth would anybody want to spend their money there?
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I am sure there are some hugely talented people trying to drag M&S into being a bit more contemporary but it beggars belief that no one seems to be able to improve the merchandising and presentation.
There seems to be zero understanding of the need for a ‘memorable customer experience’ and those customers who have left reviews on Trustpilot agree. 71% rating the company ‘poor or bad’
If I was the CEO or a member of the leadership team I would hang my head in shame.
M&S feels completely unloved. Both internally and externally.
Stuck in a time warp of its own making.
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