What I watched last night-Mary Portas Secret Shopper

A fitting room with themed ‘style icon’ cubicles, a catwalk, till point and Tweet Mirrors, technology that lets you take a photo and post it onto Twitter, was all part of Mary’s plan last night to transform fast fashion store Pilot, costing the owner a cool £1 million. That was just one of Mary’s suggestions to make the store in Braintree more customer friendly, a place where training consists of a poster in the staff room demonstrating customer feelings through faces with different expressions, and a ‘motivational’ laminate in the toilet with phrases such as ‘smile like you’re on a stage’, no wonder customer service is non-existent on the UK high street.

The MD of Pilot wasn’t much better having never met the three members of staff working at he store, despite one working there three years. Instead he considered speaking to them over the phone adequate enough. I guess you shouldn’t expect too much from a man who carries security tags in his briefcase to test door alarms.

Nevertheless he listened to tough talking Mary and let his girls practice their service skills on customers at a branch of restaurant chain Leon, along with agreeing to roll out the new fitting room concept to all 44 stores. Not sure I would listen to a retail expert wearing a fuchsia dress teamed with a khaki cotton top against vivid orange hair, Mary what were you thinking?

It was clear from the start of the programme that Mary had very high expectations of high street stores. Going undercover in Primark, New Look, H&M and Zara, she discovered how unwelcoming and untidy they are, and their total disregard for customer service, what ever happened to the saying ‘The customer is king?’

However what did Mary expect from these fast fashion stores when staff are working for minimum wage and have to buy their own uniform, ie Primark. And this is all coming from the woman who shops in Selfridges with the help of a personal shopper in the VIP area. Perhaps Mary you would like to hear some of my experiences, which include being totally ignored by staff, them having no product knowledge or seeming more interested in the layout of the store than you, the customer.

Mary continues her mission for good customer service and the golden rules-smile-speak-service, next Wednesday on Channel 4 when she visits a large chain of furniture stores, heads will roll.