Blog Classic – Mid Communications

Future of retail in unusual circumstances

Good Afternoon everyone, hope you are all well.

It has been two weeks since my return to work and my 1st blog. How time flies…

It has been a full on two weeks with plenty to catch up on and planning for the near and distant future, So I wanted to share some of my learning with you as a I start to adapt and answer some of my previous questions and concerns.

Personally, I find working from home is very productive. Minimal distractions, however I count myself lucky as my children are older and independent.
Multiple Video calls daily can be challenging and mentally draining and takes up a serious amount of concentration.
Don’t stop with your personal development and find time in your day, I highly recommend Pro-Manchester for their content over the past few months.
We as businesses are all facing similar challenges and unfortunately some more challenging than others, sadly some of my business contacts are making the tough decisions to cease trading.
Culture & values will be vitally important, I would say more than ever as we start to get back to some normality.
Our team member’s roles at MID Communications will not be the same and we all need to adapt, from Business development managers, Store leaders and our Retail Advisors.
INITIALLY RETAIL WILL NOT BE THE SAME….

Following on from my last point!

I believe retail will not be the same. I have worked in retail since I was 16 years old across various roles in sales and Leadership and with the O2 brand for 15 years. I have seen retail evolve over time and the past 5 years has been a massive shift to customer experience, education and theatre to combat an ever increasing competition on the High street and the emergence of Online.

So as we plan to re-open our O2 retail stores here at MID Communications, we have, since the 23rd March 2020 been in strategy and planning mode ready for the 15th. This is to ensure we continue to provide a world class experience for our customers while adhering to and exceeding health and safety measures to protect our team and our visiting customers.

“Will we see an increasing decline in footfall?, During Lock down customers buying habits have changed as we have seen a boom in online shopping. Will customers flood back to the High street? … I Hope so…”

What will change in retail?

The Pace, for customers and employees. Retail is faced paced, look at peak times of the year, Christmas, Black Friday.
Expect to Queue.
Customer interaction will feel very different and in some instances less personable.
Not all services will be available.
More Retailers going cashless.
Click and Collect will evolve to drive less human contact.
Lower prices and sales to drive cash in the bank.

So what does this mean for our customers?

Adaptations have been made in our stores to protect our colleagues and customers.

These include changes to how we welcome our customers:

All our stores will have a host to greet customers on arrival
The host will establish the reason for the customer’s visit
If there’s a team member available to help them, the customer will be allowed to enter the store
The customer won’t be able to enter the store until there’s a team member available
Some of our stores may allow 1 person (who is next in line) to wait outside the store- No queues outside the store
For remaining customers our host will take the customers’ details and use our store queue management system which will notify the customer when a Team member is available
NHS and Care Workers who show their ID badges will be given VIP access to queue jump.
In Addition here at MID Communications we like to go above and beyond to provide a world class experience for our customers so we have launched our Appointment booking service across our stores, we may even give our customers a call to see if we can assist over the phone to save a trip to store. see our dedicated COVID-19 page for more information.

When in store our customers will see:

Team members wearing PPE such as cloth masks and PPE visors
Team members sanitizing their hands (in addition to regular hand-washing) and sanitizing surfaces in the store. Hand sanitizer is also available for customer use.
Some areas not available for use – to support social distancing
Card machines and demo devices being cleaned after each use
Team members wearing a ‘Stay safe’ t-shirt or the O2 uniform
Team members maintaining 2m social distancing

Customers will be asked:

Card payment Only as our stores are now cashless, contactless payments wherever possible (contactless limits have been increased to £45)
Maintain 2m social distancing throughout their store visit.

Note: Upon opening the following services are currently suspended:

Click & Collect and Click & Collect today
Loan phones
Data transfers and diagnostics
Guru appointments

Thank you for reading and I look forward to next week and see how retail bounces back after a 3 month lock down, I wish all you retailers a very happy and safe return..

Stay safe

Back to work

Good Morning everyone, hope you are all well

I returned to work this week after my nine-week hiatus and may I add, I’m glad to be back!

During my time away I can say that my new roles included Cleaner, Head Chef, Painter and Decorator, Joiner, Iron monger, Landscape gardener, Head Teacher, Fitness coach, Dance teachers assistant, Songwriter, Dog walker and an Asda Home delivery driver. I would like to say that I had a chilled out nine weeks but I would be lying.

Actually, I needed to be busy. I needed to stay in a routine and have purpose. So, I’m grateful to my wife, who was continuing to work at home as a social worker for the local council and my three daughters for finding me a million jobs to do and supporting me in being a house husband and Dad.

So, what have I learnt over the past nine weeks,

· A little Italian and about the same in Spanish.

· I miss football on TV.

· How to braid hair and make friendship bracelets (same method).

· Completed a few Audible Books.

· I miss family and friends and BBQ’s.

· My top visited website has changed to Sky news.

· My Wife, Kids and I enjoy each other’s company.

Don’t get me wrong… I really enjoyed some of it. The weather was amazing, eating meals together as a family and sometimes at eight o’clock, as not needing to be at a certain place at a certain time, no dance classes, no events, no horrible commutes on the M60. But equally there are things I didn’t like.

So back to work this week and hopefully this will start to Answer some of my questions from over the past nine weeks.

· What does the new normal look like?

· How busy will it be?

· Being a social person, how will I cope working in isolation?

· Will there be any face to face meeting this year?

· Are customers in the buying cycle for my team’s products and services?

· What do we need to do to adapt?

· What new skills do I need to learn?

Given I have only been back two days I don’t have all the answers but what I do know is that for the foreseeable, my new normal is working from home in my office with the easiest commute to work I have ever had. Microsoft Teams will be my gateway for personal interaction and engaging with my colleagues and hopefully customers and partners, Prospects and friends and family, So first job was to have my teams backgrounds created.. (always on brand).

The coming weeks will be Very interesting and I’m ready for the challenge.

I need to thank my Directors for their support over the past nine weeks.

I hope everyone continues to stay safe and I really hope to see you very soon.

Take care

World Mental Health Day

Today is World Mental Health Day and this year’s topic is suicide prevention. Prevention is something we can all help with by being aware and supportive to those around us. A short conversation with someone can really make a difference to how they are feeling.

Being aware of changes in behaviour, such as social withdrawal and excessive quietness/loudness, can highlight how an individual may be feeling and being aware of their coping mechanisms can help you to help them. This may be simple things such as making them a cup of tea, giving them space or simply distracting them with a brief conversation.

At MID Communications we are committed to supporting the mental health and wellbeing of our employees. We have monthly 121 conversations between employees and their line manager, which are an opportunity for employees to highlight how they are feeling both at work and personally. From these conversations, line managers can support them appropriately and it helps to build a strong employee-manager relationship so employees can feel comfortable approaching their line manager with any issues, no matter how big or small.

A team of Wellbeing Champions were introduced in February to provide another form of support for our employees with their mental health and wellbeing. Our Wellbeing Champions are there for when employees feel they want to discuss any problems and our champions are there to signpost them to relevant services, should the employees feel that would be beneficial. These conversations will remain private and confidential, unless the champion considers the issues discussed to be particularly concerning, then they must contact the HR department who will support the individual appropriately. Since being in role, the champions have been approached on numerous occasions and feedback from our employees has been extremely positive.

Mental Health and Wellbeing is important to us at MID Communications and we are always looking for ways in which we can further support our employees to try and break the stigma within our workplace.

IIP Platinum Accreditation for MID Communications

MID Communications achieves Platinum accreditation for its people practices

MID Communications is delighted to announce the achievement of Platinum level accreditation following a recent Investors in People (IIP) reassessment in June this year. This is highest possible achievement given by IIP, in recognition of great people practices.

The accreditation reflects the work the business has put in since the last assessment and our overall commitment to managing our people well and promoting high performance.

Since 1991, Investors in People has defined what it takes to lead, support and manage people well and MID Communications can now call itself one of the best employers for people practices in the UK. In our previous blog we mentioned our aim to achieve gold level, therefore, to exceed this target and achieve the Platinum award from IIP shows how big an achievement this is for MID Communications both as a team and a business.

Danny Simpson, our CEO said “I am so Proud of all our people and our efforts over the last 3 years; however, I am impressed with how following the framework robustly, it really has helped in shaping our people strategy and move the business forward. Not only is this amazing to be accredited with such a prestigious award, but the benefits to our business have been nothing short of fantastic. I would recommend any business to do this if you are passionate about growth, success and most importantly your people. I am proud of every one past and present that has helped play a part of our journey in building a great business. Our goal is to be an employer of choice in the Northwest; a company who invests in its people, knowing that they are the heart and engine of success. I would also like to recognise our HR Director Jennifer Hulme who has led this project and framework all the way back in 2015, from the year she joined. If you have passionate people, with goals and determination, then anything is possible.”

Jenn Hulme, HR Director and Head of Stores commented “I am so pleased to be part of this great business; to be supported so fundamentally in the achievement of this fantastic accreditation really shows the quality and investment Danny Simpson, CEO makes in the People of MID Communications. I believe, if you put people at the heart of the business, engage, develop and motivate them to be better, then the performance will come. As well as HR Director, I have the great pleasure in leading the Store estate. I endeavour to bring my HR practice into my daily conversations and talk of the value of good people management, in helping to deliver targets. I hope this, plus a lot of focus on evidencing our performance helped us achieve our ultimate goal. For HR Practitioners it is often difficult to measure ‘how are we doing’; we rely on employee surveys etc. to tell us if we are measuring up. IIP is the ultimate scorecard for HR, one I would thoroughly recommend. This result will stay with me a very long time as it is the culmination of many years of hard work, however we will not sit on our laurels, as I know it is as hard to retain as it is to achieve”

As Jenn mentioned, the hard work will not stop now that we have achieved Platinum. We will continue to strive for excellent people practice in the years to come, an important factor that will allow this amazing business go from strength to strength.

The CEO Files: Retail Changes in 2019

The changing retail landscape

Following on from last week’s edition of The CEO Files about ‘retailtainment’ and the changes the retail world has gone through in the last few years, I just wanted to give my thoughts and predictions on what is still to come for retailers. The demand for online shopping will, without doubt, continue to dictate the market however I believe the impact of online will eventually start to plateau. The effect the online shopping industry has had would have been unimaginable, nevertheless, we are now seeing online retailers like Amazon wanting space on the high street. Could we see another shift in the coming years?

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Over the space of 2019 and beyond we will see more advances in retail and shopping, a few of which I will give my opinion on below. I believe these will happen because of 5G, which launches this year, and will drive change even more. I will be covering 5G in The CEO Files in the coming weeks so make sure to keep an eye out. 5G doesn’t just bring faster internet on the mobile, it will bring so much more.

10 retail changes we’ll see this year

Below are my top 10 predictions of the next big changes that we will see impact retail and businesses alike in the very near future:

3D Payments – This will become present this year due to mobile devices offering facial scanning to unlock them, this will move to payment like Apple Pay and android pay becoming even more popular.
Faster and simple shopping – like we’ve seen with ‘Dash Button’ ordering on Amazon.
Cashless environments – I believe in the next 3-5 years that mobile devices will replace all other payment methods as more and more people use smartphones and devices to pay for their goods. The UK is currently the third highest cashless country, behind Canada and Sweden.
AI and machine – learning customer’s needs faster and more efficient will become important for businesses. Also, this will shape things like driverless vehicles offering faster deliveries.
Voice recognition – ordering through our smart devices, ‘Hey Siri. ‘Alexa’, etc.
Mobile led approach – This method will be adopted by more and more businesses as 1 in 5 people use the smartphone to buy something every week. 66% of digital traffic in retail comes from a smartphone and over 50% convert to transact.
Social media – it will continue to disrupt the shopping and buying experience and will continue to replace call centres as web chat, Facebook Messenger, Whatsapp, etc see growth in marketing and customer interaction.
Push communications – through apps, beacons in stores and direct messages through social media will play a part in marketing changes.
VR – Virtual Reality has come on leaps and bounds and will feature in the buying experience. Consumers will be able to experience the virtual retail environment from their own private setting, at a time convenient to them.
3D sensing – retailers will be able to use your facial expressions to decide the products they display. You will be shown products that you give a positive facial reaction to,

As you can see there is a lot on the horizon and a lot more change still to come in the retail industry. One thing that will stay the same is that the customer experience and the ability to ‘retailtain’ will always be paramount.

Thank you for reading and I hope this has been useful to my fellow retailers and business leaders. Please feel free to find me on Twitter (@DannyMIDSimpson) and give me your opinions on how you think the retail world will change in 2019 and beyond.

Until next time…

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