In her new monthly column, broadcaster and consumer expert, Kate Hardcastle MBE – also know as The Customer Whisperer – highlights the retailers making moves to really help shoppers – and those that need to go back to the drawing board.
Customer yeh: Club Pret – more coffee anyone?
With a subscription that seems to keep the customer satisfied, Pret has managed to adjust the price of its offer – but ensure that the benefits keep coming.
Great news for coffee lovers who are part of Club Pret, Pret A Manger’s subscription scheme.
The scheme cost £20 a month when it launched in 2020, and whilst that’s now gone up to £30, the discount offered to members has been doubled, rising from 10% to 20% on food, drinks and snacks as of early September.
Club Pret members also receive five free drinks a day, and as any commuter knows, that’s a coffee deal that’s still a steal in anyone’s book.
The membership scheme originally did not include discounts, just free coffees, but in the first three months since it changed its model in April, it has seen a whopping 17.8million UK redemptions in the first three months alone.
That’s a LOT of coffee and a LOT of caffeinated commuters making their weary way to the office.
New subscribers also get their first month half-price too – an even bigger bonus.
The scheme is going from strength to strength and is now being rolled out worldwide. The revamped and renamed subscription has seemingly done wonders for Pret’s bottom line, with the coffee chain returning to profitability for the first time since 2018 this year.
True customer service is often simple – giving people what they want, at the right price and rewarding them for their loyalty.
Well done to Pret on such a true win/win for both the company and the consumer – but if anyone can please find a better way to get the ‘Pret Perk’ – the incredibly hard-to-find reward buried in the app – to work within stores, I think consumers and colleagues would appreciate it.
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Customer meh – H&M returns its returns policy
It’s a fact that returns represent a substantial challenge for retailers. The traditional approach is both costly and often unsustainable.
A BFC report found that it costs a retailer around 55 to 75% of a product’s retail price to process each online return received.
Next-day deliveries and free returns gained mass popularity during lockdown, and customers became used to the convenience of ordering goods – sometimes even a whole wardrobe – from the comfort of their homes, seemingly minus any consequence to their wallets or the environment.
Sustainable this was not, and fashion giant H&M has taken the bull by the horns when it announced a £1.99 fee to return parcels in store or online this autumn, with the cost taken from the expected refund.
Only that’s no longer the case – for some customers anyway.
In a spectacular u-turn, H&M has now updated its policy to state that it will not charge shoppers who return online purchases in store.
According to a company spokesperson, information housed on the retailer’s website was “inaccurate” and is now amended, however, shoppers returning online purchases directly to the warehouse will still face the fee.
It’s not sure whether the brand actually did back down under pressure or there was a genuine error, but the consumer communications around this change of policy could certainly have been handled much better.
It’s hard to speculate how the industry as a whole can manage returns better, in a way that suits both businesses and shoppers – but for the sake of retention and consumer goodwill, the customer should always come first, and confused consumers are always very vocal to share their thoughts.
That said, brands like Next know well that in-store returns can drive more sales, therefore encouraging shoppers to head to the shop with their parcels can be fruitful.
Kate Hardcastle MBE is an international consumer expert, broadcaster and commentator who splits her time between the UK, US and UAE.
She works with some of the world’s biggest brands to reimagine their customer engagement by providing insight that help transform their businesses.
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