easier to read. The aim was that customers would reach any point in the
shopping trip and think that Tesco understood shopping from theirview-
point. Overall, there was a range of over 100 different improvements, for
example, meat counter towels, fish display units, specialized trolleys and
so on from which a regional director and local store manager would
choose, costing from £20 000 to £500 000, to achieve the ‘New Look’ for
each individual store.
The next element of service was about standards, i.e. setting, measuring
and managing them in each store. Queuing was known to be one of the
things customers disliked most about shopping. However, further research
showed that if there was only one person in front of them and they were
busy unloading the trolley, they didn’t consider that they were queuing. In
response, autumn 1994 saw the introduction of ‘One in Front’, in which £15
million was spent in ensuring that Tesco could pledge to immediately open
more tills if there was more than one person in front of a customer at any
time. Launched with a major advertising campaign, it was regarded by
management as one of the most successful initiatives to date.
Culture was considered as the most difficult and intangible element of
the service strategy. In 1992 Tesco had begun to address this issue with the
launch of ‘First Class Service’. It was a radical change and very different to
the centralized ‘command and control’ style that previously operated. Each
member of the 130 000 staff was given responsibility to look after cus-
tomers in the way they thought best and managers were then encouraged
to recognize staff achievements and to treat them as individuals, so that
they in turn treated customers as individuals too. After four years the
scheme is considered by management as a remarkable success. Staff now
perceive each and every customer as valuable and are aware that keeping
them loyal to Tesco means that, over a lifetime, each individual has the
potential to spend an average of £90 000 with the company. The initiative
was developed further with the introduction of Customer Assistants in
every store; £20 million was spent in hiring and developing staff to be
responsible only for helping customers in each store, the idea behind this
being that ultimately they would come to know them by name, seek them
out and develop a one-to-one relationship with them. The culture and
climate created by these initiatives is seen as ‘pure alchemy’ by the man-
agement, which they believe has allowed each individual store to develop
stronger alliances with their own customers.
The Clubcard launch
The Clubcard launch in 1995 was also an integral part of the move to a cus-
tomer-centred strategy. Launched as a ‘Thank You Card’, it allowed Tesco
to develop one-to-one relationships on a corporate level. The cost of
The customer market domain: Managing relationships with buyers 83