John Lewis IT – a customer focussed
service
Andy Melson
John Lewis – a customer focussed
IT service
Agenda
John Lewis - background, business model and culture
John Lewis - Driving customer service standards higher
IT in John Lewis - the scale of its operations
IT in John Lewis - driving service standards higher
Achilles Heel
JOHN LEWIS BUSINESS CONTEXT
(Year to January 2012)
SALES
£3.3 bn
SHOPS
catalogues
29 Dept Stores, 3 Flexible format stores, 7 @Home, online,
RANGE
350,000 active SKU’s – 30% own brand
STAFF
28,000 staff
JL Financial
Services
• Group Turnover £9 bn approx
• Predominantly UK
• No Shareholders
PETER JONES
Trafford
John Lewis Business Model
‘Britain’s Favourite Department Store’
Ist class
customer
service
Value
Never
knowingly
undersold
Wide
assortment
Convenient
locations
Quality
shop
interiors
John Lewis’s Culture
‘
Pbop’ – powered
by our principles
As an Employee
Weekly dept/comm training meetings
Directorate and Department Forums in
HQ
Ad hoc meetings when needed for
particular issues
Communication
As a Co-owner
Central Council, Branch Council
Weekly branch and company magazines
Customer service
AGM
– external and
internal customers
Annual results (bonus announcement)
Annual Bonus
John Lewis’s Culture
‘
Pbop’ – powered
by our principles
As an Employee
Weekly dept/comm training meetings
Directorate and Department Forums in
HQ
Ad hoc meetings when needed for
particular issues
Communication
As a Co-owner
Central Council, Branch Council
Weekly branch and company magazines
Customer service
AGM
– external and
internal customers
Annual results (bonus announcement)
Customer Service - ‘Making the experience of using the
services of the company more rewarding’
Buyers – select the assortment
that enhance the experience
Merchandisers/ Logistics –
ensure stock is available
Marketing – set customer
expectation, don’t over
promise
Shop design – shop layout easy
to navigate, merchandise
attractively displayed
IT - simple processes,
great system availability
Measuring Customer Service in
John Lewis
Mystery shoppers
Highlighting
exceptional service
Anonymous letters
Customer complaints
Staff survey
Staff survey – ‘happy staff make
happy customers’
Increase staff
perception
Increase customer
perception
Increase sales
40 questions:
Company, branch, department, manager, processes, IT
Influences manager’s pay
IT in John Lewis
• IT Staff Development and Application
Support - 300 (inc JohnLewis.com) London and flexible offshore resource
• Technical Support/Data
Centre/Infrastructure – 250 (shared
with Waitrose) - Bracknell/London
• Staff - 50% Grad recruits / 25%
experienced / 25% ex busines
• Turnover low (tracks industry by under
50%)
• Systems Portfolio – 60% in-house/40%
package ……. but changing
• Infrastructure – most systems on-line,
mainframe - centric,
DB2/CICS/COBOL/JAVA etc.
Hardware in Branches & D Cs
• 10,000 PCs and 15,000 printers
• 3,500 Registers using POS
systems at 60 locations
• 4,000 Hand-Held Terminals
• 2,500 cordless phones
Systems
• 50m + POS transactions per year,
99.95% reliability
• 45,000 Gift Lists (£70m sales)
• 600+ Call Centre ‘seats’ answer
130,000+ calls per week
• 140,000 new products a year
• 30,000 price changes processed
on a average day
• Replenishment systems process
4,000 new supplier orders every
day
Focus of IT
Outstanding
availability
Simple
processes
Service in the
home
Ease of access
to JL
Improving
customer service
Service after the
sale
Accurate & timely
data
Easy and secure
payment
Measuring IT Customer Service
Anonymous letters (customer complaints?)
Staff Survey – ‘computer systems support me well
in my job?’
Systems performance and reporting it clearly
Computer systems support me well
in my job? – year 1
Highest branch
score
+7
Average branch
score
+2
Lowest
branch score
-5
Narrowing the IT Service Gap
Promote IT
In branches
Closer
relations
with local IT
Launching
new
systems
innovatively
Measuring IT Customer Service
Anonymous letters (customer complaints?)
Staff Survey – ‘computer systems support me well
in my job?’
Systems performance and reporting it clearly
SERVICE AVAILABILITY
(Week Beginning)
2nd
Nov
9th
Nov
16th
Nov
23rd
Nov
30th
Nov
7th
Dec
14th
Dec
21st
Dec
28th
Dec
4th
Jan
11th
Jan
18th
Jan
25th
Jan
Key Customer Facing System
(CSS & POS)
Key Customer Facing System
(Telephony).
Key Distribution Systems
(DLX & DCMCS)
Key Buying Systems
(Assortment Replenishment & WSSI).
Key Financial System
(Peoplesoft)
Key Personnel System
(Partnerlink)
Victoria IT Service
(SAN & Network Infrastructure).
Date
Description
Cause
Resolution of
Incident
Resolution of Problem
Service Area Affected
Down
Time
28.12.08
To
31.01.09
Several Hour + periods of
outages or poor performance
throughout TP12
Recently updated
database
Users bounced off
server
Ongoing investigations
Partnerlink users
Multiple
Hour +
28.01.09
PCs hanging and difficulty
logging onto the network
Caused by SMS issuing
server reboot commands
Server reboots
Ongoing investigations
with Microsoft
Head office and some
branch servers
30 Mins
19.01.09
WMS lost connectivity
Server taken offline
Server brought back
online
Server taken offline to
resolve perfomance issues
WMS
5 Mins
Operational Metrics
Critical Path Length
Incident Logs
8:00
VAT
7:00
Incident Logs Open 2007 & 2008
change
6:00
4000
5:00
3000
2000
4:00
1000
3:00
Feb
Mar
Apr
May
Jun
Jul
Aug
Sep
Oct
Nov
Dec
Jan
Opened 2007
2358
2292
3065
2688
2698
3443
2789
2711
3403
2695
2500
2986
Opened 2008
2811
2456
2359
2406
2523
3175
2507
2588
3306
2558
2981
3479
Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan
2007
2008
Online Availability
Operating Deadlines
100.00
100.00
99.50
99.50
99.00
99.00
98.50
98.50
98.00
Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan
Operating Deadlines
Average YTD
98.00
Feb Mar Apr May Jun
Online Availability
Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan
Average YTD
Computer systems support me well in my job?
?
Beauty Facelift
Before
After