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
MB
