When M&S set about reviving their performance on the high street, they recognised that to deliver excellent in-store service was an area where they could steal a march on their competitors. Real service has slipped off the agenda for many of the big retail operations as they focus more on price, however M&S soon found that it had not slipped off the priority list of their customers.
To rejuvenate a culture of great service, M&S enlisted the help of international service guru Mary Gober to train their staff in a series of live events.
Having found and hired the right person, there were two more challenges. Firstly, training an entire nationwide retail workforce and getting quick results was going to need some large scale events with a personal feel. In all, over sixty four thousand staff were to be trained. Secondly, Mary Gober was booked to deliver the first event in just four weeks time.
M&S brought in Logistik, an event management company used to managing inspiring events with tough deadlines. Logistik turned to Dataflow Events to get a registration process in place, communicate with store staff, and manage on site attendee data.
Recognising the time constraints and ongoing changes to staff data, Dataflow worked with Logistik to implement a system to gather attendee names from store coordinators, who were our 'eyes and ears' at store level. Working with the store coordinators a database of attendees was rapidly assembled, together with transport arrangements and catering requirements. Information packs and badges were distributed to all attendees prior to the event.
On site, Dataflow tracked attendance of all attendees via a badge scanning system. Up to 4000 delegates were registered in each session, all within a registration period of 90 minutes.
Over the following months 18 events were staged, achieving the aim of training more than 80% o M&S shop floor staff to deliver excellent service.
Client feedback was highly positive. Julie Davidson, Director at Logistik writes "Thank you so much for all your efforts at the recent event at Earls Court. A very tight deadline meant that the event was always going to be hard work, but through the fantastic attitude and commitment shown by everyone on site we managed to produce a really great production in difficult circumstances. The feedback which we have received from Marks and Spencer has been incredibly positive, so please accept our thanks for this."
