Mary Queen of Frocks- How do you solve a problem like Mary?

Despite Mary's opening of her new store turning out to be a hit and netting her £18,598 in profit, way over her £10,000 daily target, the retail consultant still wasn't happy.

While customers complimented Mary on her designs and the impeccable customer service, Mary was more concerned that her best-sellers were out of stock and not being replenished, and rightly so with a long waiting list of women desperate for her Arora dress.

Worried that HOF's failure was causing her to loose money and people's custom, she complained to store manager Paul, who told her he didn't like loosing money too but that everything would come together. Another of Mary's issue she discussed with the store manager was the department store's badges her staff are made to wear.

'I really don't want name badges on staff', she moaned. 'It doesn't go with what I'm trying to create.'

Paul told Mary that there needed to be compromise and acceptance. 'The C word isn't in my vocabularly', an angry Mary replied, who was furious that HOF was turning her space into their own brand.

'It feels like when coming in it's not my store it's House of Fraser's', she said after finding HOF store card pamphlets on her till and hearing that her staff have been told to offer the card to every customer.

'You can cage the best, but you can't tame the beast', said Paul in response to Mary's attack on the department store.

Then Mary was given the news that her brand would be rolled-out to other HOF stores following a successful  three to four weeks of trading in London. However instead of being happy, Mary cried that it wasn't about a roll-out as the store was her dream. She then exclaimed that she wanted stores in London, Paris and Milan, not Guildford, Kent, where she was sent to suss out the department store's clientele.

Surprisingly shoppers at Guildford pleaded with Mary to bring her designs to their store, after one forty something woman told her she was stuck in a style rut and needed help, which reassured Mary. So she enlisted the help of her team member Mark, who impressed her with his selling technique, to help her with the roll-out and ensure it would be a 'brand roll-out, not a bland roll-out.'

But while she had her team and the HOF big-wigs on side, her neighbours Spencer and Liz were angry at Mary for stealing their customers. To help them the retail consultant set them a challenge to dress her in their brand's designs, evening wear, while she would dress Liz in the clothes from her space, all filmed and aired on HOF's store TV channel. It's a good PR stunt she assured them as staff from the ground floor gathered around the TV to watch.

Mary Portas Queen of Frocks- turning a department store into a sex shop?

Purple dildos and ‘Armoury’tights worn on the arms, were just some of Mary’s ideas for her new store at House of Fraser.

On last night’s episode of Queen of Frocks, the retail guru told House of Fraser bods that she wanted the design of her retail space to be fun and sexy with neon pictures of naked silhouettes of women and an area selling sex toys.

‘This is a family store’, the managers told her. ‘I don’t want to have to explain to my seven-year-old what a dildo is’, said another.

So the dildo’s were replaced with a line of homeware, a comparable compromise?

Things got worse as a month to go until the launch, and Mary’s collection was slated by her group of forty something women and a focus group set up by her business manager to decide whether Mary should be the face of the advertising campaign, after the retail consultant refused to do it, not wanting a celebrity endorsed line, like she said ‘Linda Barker with DFS.’The focus group, who agreed that Mary’s face shouldn’t be used to advertise the brand, said her clothes were boring and not quirky like the way she dresses.

However, Mary’s harshest critic was forty something Penn, who told her that her suit (part of collection) made her (Penn) look like a McDonalds manager, her sheer shirt was something she would have worn in the eighties, and a tight-fitting dress, which the other women said looked lovely on her, she claimed covered up her body which was better than the dress.

Taking on their feedback, Ms Portas extended her collection with clothes that she would wear, wasn’t that an obvious move, adding a leopard print shift dress and leather panelled dress. She also came up with, what she considered to be a genius idea to banish bingo wings and replace the shrug, ‘Armoury’, tights worn as sleeves, which Daily mail journalist Liz Jones scoffed at.

And that wasn’t Mary’s only problem, her only make member of staff Mark failed to respond to messages about a training day, leaving Mary to chase him herself, and then missing his train to go and view Mary’s shoe collection in collaboration with Clarks, along with the rest of the team. He turned up an hour late and missed the training. Mary warned Mark, who has been unemployed for a year, she was taking a risk with him.

On next week’s episode Mary’s store opens to the public.

Mary Queen of Frocks-The retail consultant is off to a difficult start

Queen of Shops Mary Portas put her money where her mouth is as she turned her dream of starting a clothing line for 40 plus women into reality.

On the first episode of Mary Queen of Frocks, the retail consultant was up against the clock to design and create a collection unique to anything else on the high street, and recruit 12 members of staff to work for her brand.

The first hurdle was to find a backer crazy enough to agree to work with head strong Mary.Marks and Spencer's ignored her and the chairman of Jaeger and Aquascutum said he couldn't do it. A glimmer of hope came when Ms Portas received a call from department store House of Fraser, who agreed to giver her a 2,000 sq ft space in their flagship (Oxford Street). The catch? 'You need to make £2m in the first year', said CEO John King, and create a collection and have the space up and running in six months, a mean feat even for Mary.

Ms Portas' plan-to produce from scratch seven easy pieces, not tweak-ready made collections as House of Fraser had hoped.

Then came the problem of recruiting staff. After a talk with the department store's existing employees, many of whom were told they could loose their jobs as the shop is modernised, only one person applied, Siobhan from Austin Reed.

'I feel like Billy no mates', said Mary. So she took her search nationally and placed an ad in the Metro newspaper, a move which saw hundreds of people apply and Mary Whittle them down to just 12. Among Mary's team of staff, former Biba manager, a camp Northerner and a self proclaimed crazy woman. Siobhan didn't make the cut.

At the same time she recruited a group of 'real women' in their fifties to advise her and enlisted the help of her wedding dress designer.

 But with so much more to do before the store can open will it prove too much for Mary and will she crack under the pressure. The pressure of delivering perfect customer service after criticising other brand's' service and making a profit rather than a loss, as most lines starting out do.

Lily Allen Riches to Rags- Nice work if you can get it?

 Lily was off in her own little world again in last night’s episode of Riches to Rags, as her sister Sarah and their brand manager worked tirelessly to get their store- Lucy in Disguise, off the ground. Whereas workshy Lily, who claimed she intended to work in the store when it opens, put more time into her new flat and reading stories about herself in the press.

‘I’m the creative side, you’re the business side’, she told her sister as they prepared for a meeting with the bank. A meeting which had been set up by Sarah, who drew up the business plan single handed.

Even when it came to marketing the product, the supposed creative side, once again Lily’s input was minimum as she stood by their brand director who chose and styled a model for a photo shoot to promote the brand.

Finding a premises for the store was also like the blind leading the blind, so thank God for Mary Portas who managed to convince the girls that having a store away from the main foot fall would be detrimental to their business. ‘We want it to be a shopping destination’, claimed Sarah and Lily, who had their hearts set on a premises in Great Titchfield Street, metres away from Topshop's flagship store. When Covent Garden as a location was suggested, the girls implied it was too high street for their customer, who is meant to be the average girl who can afford a piece of luxury at their store reminded Mary.

Days/weeks later they visit a store off Covent Garden’s piazza. Lily, the cash cow, clearly isn’t happy but what with limited options and time running out goes along with the idea.

Mary Portas creates a precedent for estate agents

 It was Mary Portas to the rescue again last night on Secret Shopper (CH4) as she fought to create a new bred of estate agents that are trustworthy, hardworking and honest, a mean task considering 79 per cent of people don’t trust them. As a soon to be first time buyer this rings alarm bells, especially when retail expert Mary Portas discovered that most estate agents receive little or no training before they are sent to do a viewing.

North London estate agents Martyn Gerard provide new recruits with an hours training on customer service, found Mary as she went to give the family business of eight offices a helping hand. However founder Martyn, and now owner Simon Gerard, claimed they only wanted Mary’s help rather than needed it as their service is far superior to the competition because they go the extra mile with personal touches. These consist of a letter to say thank you with an umbrella on to paying customers. Mary tells them ‘Your (estate agents) reputation is as good as poo on the street.’ So she meets up with Martyn Gerard’s top seller Philip Johnson and reveals secret footage of him doing a viewing with a customer, if you can call it that what with his phone glued to his ear. At another viewing he tells a customer that ‘West facing is the new South facing’, its all 'smoke and mirrors' argues Mary, who decides to set the team a task to be a tour guide for the day at Kenwood House. The team excel, which angers her further.

Ms Portas suggests a new approach to viewings, estate agents must list positives and negatives of a property and get rid of all the jargon, with a banned list of clichés, ‘on a popular/prestigious turning’, ‘good for DIY enthusiasts’. Simon Gerard isn’t too keen on Mary’s ideas.

To road test this honest service, Philip and colleague Veronica agree to show customers around two homes that have been on their books for a long time, only they must do a viewing in a different way by using knowledge told to them by the seller and no spin.The result- customers say it’s the best viewing they’ve ever had.

Weeks into the new approach and 100 per cent of customers agree they are pleased with Martyn Gerard’s service and fully trust them, which of course wins Simon around.

4-0 to Mary!!

Mary Portas Secret Shopper- This time it's personal

It’s astonishing how many people get conned into buying a mobile phone they don’t want or agreeing to an over priced contract. Only the other day my hairdresser told me she is paying £55 a month for her iPhone on O2, problem is that after she dropped it down the toilet she found that the salesman hadn’t set up her insurance properly. So she’s had to buy a cheap phone but still stuck with the expensive contract. And she’s not alone, according to retail expert Mary Portas, who last night vowed to change this shopping hell, starting with mobile retailer Fone House. But it wasn’t going to be easy with 45 of the 50 stores ran as franchises and five owned by CEO Clive, a 70s rocker who fell into the business, a recipe for disaster?

Mary, with all her good intentions, was sent to the store in Waltham Cross, owned by top seller H, a man who drives a flashy sports car and believes ‘don’t fix it unless it’s broke.’But despite being able to talk the talk, and walk the walk, Mary discovered his customer service just didn’t come up to scratch. Her solution? To send the sales team, plus the companies worst seller -Matt from the flagship store in Angel, to work on a cosmetics counter, where listening to what women want is key. Turns out Matt was more suited to selling women’s lotions and potions than phones. Thank god then for Mary, who took him under her wing.

But that wasn’t all she had up her sleeve. Her plan was to recreate the mobile phone shopping experience into a sociable and enjoyable one by gutting the interior of the stores and introducing demonstration tables for customers to try before they buy and learn about the different phones, rather than be baffled by sales garble.

While Clive agreed to the changes at the Angel store, H and the other franchisees weren’t so easy to convince. Perhaps the cost of £20-25,000 had something to do with it?

But not one for being stuck in the past, H eventually gave in after hearing how sales had increased at the flagship store since the refit, money speaks!

Next week Mary goes undercover at Estate Agents.

Mary Portas helps Fonehouse become more customer friendly

So far we've seen Mary tackle fast fashion stores and furniture shops, but next week tough talking Ms Portas will visit mobile phone retailer Fonehouse, run by CEO Clive Bayley, who thinks his customer service is 10/10. And then in comes Mary who shows him what good customer service is really about by taking control of his flagship store in Islington, London. But getting her ideas rolled out across the chain doesn't prove to be easy, as she will have to convince a group of successful franchisees as well as Clive that their customers are worth spending serious money on.

Mary Portas: Secret Shopper

 

What’s more important-customer service or commission? To furniture salesmen it’s the latter, claimed retail expert Mary Portas on the second of her Secret Shopper programmes last night.

How to solve this? Send tough taking Ms Portas to Northern furniture chain CSL to teach staff how to be customer friendly and make an example of them. But not before going undercover in some of the UK’s largest furniture retailers-SCS and Harvey’s, where salesmen pushed on her a white sofa for her ‘teenage son’s Uni pad’, and a leather sofa for her home that she shares with her cats. ‘Cats avoid leather’, said the sales guy? To add to their misdemeanours she was advised to commit insurance fraud at many of the stores.

However CSL owner, Jason, 37, told Mary his business was different as the customer always comes first? Something Ms Portas proved otherwise, of course, at the chain’s Rotherham store.

Spending a day as a member of the furniture sales team, all men, she was paired up with the store’s top seller, who despite being on minimum wage,  earned £57,000 last year all down to commission. Nice work if you can get it?!

After observation of the salesmen she set them an exercise to find a specially selected group of customers a sofa each that they would A- be happy with and B- would fit in their home, very important. The salesmen failed miserably, surprise, surprise, has no-one ever watched Mary Queen of Shops?
Welcome Mary’s ideas to turn the store into a customer friendly one at a cost of half a million pounds for all branches.

Ideas  included:- Creating an inspiration station, where customers can create a room plan using I-Pads provided.

-Mood boards, rooms created within the store.

-A list of truths written by the owner to dispel confusion of varying ‘false’ discounts and eradicate the so called money back guarantee.

-Make amends with the angry customers who created a complaints website.

And like all good stories, after implementing Mary’s changes the store was 30 per cent up on their busiest day. A coincidence or Ms Portas’ magic touch?

Next week Mary cracks down on the phone shops (Wed 9pm CH4)

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.

Must see TV

Ch4 Wed 19 @9pm- Mary Portas:secret shopper

In this new Ch4 series tough talking retail expert Mary visits stores and restaurants to critique their customer service, and I have to say I am behind Mary 100 per cent if it will mean customer service is improved.
This week she turns her attention to fashion chain Pilot and its MD Chris George. Her mission-to transform the chain's worst performing store in Essex into a haven for shoppers, and to challenge Chris to roll out her ideas across the rest of his empire.
But with a team of unpassionate staff and an MD who hires shop managers without meeting them first, will she convince them that it's her way or the highway?