David Walmsley, chief customer officer, House of Fraser

People Tell Richard Stuff

There’s not many people with a more impressive retail CV than today’s podcast guest, David Walmsley.

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Scroll to the bottom for the audio-only version.

David was appointed House of Fraser’s chief customer officer in mid-2016 after more than 20 years at retailers such as John Lewis, Dixons and Marks & Spencer. It’s an outstanding pedigree – you can see why I was keen to get him on the show!

We talked about:
• What a chief customer officer role actually means (and it’s not what you might think!);
• Mixing heritage and innovation;
• David’s 3-point plan for the House of Fraser brand;
• How to create those sought-after moments of surprise and delight;
• What does multichannel mean to the customer?
• Customer data, data plumbing and getting it right;
• Why ROI isn’t the be all and end all;
• David’s thoughts on customer lifetime value;
• Collecting customer feedback. and the view HoF takes;
• And what he’d do with an unlimited marketing budget.

David on…

His role:

It’s basically bringing the consciousness of the customer into the whole business.

And what that really means:

Just really being clear on who our core customer is, what’s important to her and making sure that we’re meeting her expectations at every touch point, literally at every touch point and whether it’s in the quality we buy through to the shops that we run and where we locate them and so on.

The important things:

Something I’ve been obsessing about a lot recently is just how do we tell or remind our customers that we love them.

What multi-channel really means:

Our customer’s number one thing is don’t waste my time. So when you think multi-channel that’s what it comes down to.

Staying relevant for every demographic:

We sell some amazing brands so how can we from a targeting point of view give the customer her next aspirational target. We’re looking to build that aspiration and sell nice things to nice people ultimately whatever their age.

Measuring innovation:

Every feature that’s rolled out should have a measurable success criteria. That level of control over the platform and experiences is fundamental and getting that real time feedback from the customers is the most powerful thing for a product team.

People Tell Richard Stuff: Episode 32
David Walmsley, Chief Customer Officer, House of Fraser

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