John Lewis

Customer Closeness

The John Lewis Partnership (John Lewis and Waitrose) had a great deal of customer data, but in a pressured environment, it was difficult for the team to surface the real, human stories behind the data in order to galvanise change.
We created a customer closeness programme that put the senior team in direct with customers on a monthly basis in a moderated environment

We began by recruiting a panel of Waitrose & John Lewis shoppers who were archetypal of their target segments.  Respondents were pre-interviewed to ensure suitability.

We then focussed the panel on a different business issue each month, integrating existing research into the programme as we went:

PRE-TASK
  • Panelists were set a different pre-task each month, focused on that month’s key business topic
  • Tasks included secret shopper missions, interview a friend, creating mood boards and recording video content
LIVE EVENT
  • We facilitated a follow-up live event each month with the senior team where we discussed task outputs and where the senior team could have a direct conversation with customers
  • Live events included home visits, shop-alongs, retail safaris and zoom focus groups
FOLLOW UP CONTENT
  • As part of the live session, we facilitated a conversation with the JLP team on implications, actions & next steps
  • We summarised the customer findings, team reflections & next steps from each session for wider circulation in the team (including reading material & video content)
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