Sainsbury's Archer Road, Sheffield: Grocer 33 store of the week

Once again for Sainsbury’s, customer service was spot on. How do you get this right?

We have a really passionate team of colleagues at the store who are performing really well in our own mystery shopping test. It is run monthly and we have been named best in town in three of the past four months.

How would you describe your personal leadership style?

I like to lead from the front and try and inspire colleagues. I’m highly involved in staff development at a regional level and it’s great to see colleagues from Archer Road going on to senior positions across the region. You have to give colleagues the tools they need to do their jobs well and then explain why they need to do it. I am also involved in a new women’s mentoring programme, which we have just introduced to help boost women’s careers in the business.

Sainsbury’s this week delivered its first like-for-like sales growth for two years. How is your store performing?

We are doing really well and contributing strong sales. I think it is our focus on making each individual store the best in town that is helping the company as a whole outperform the rest of the big four at the moment. Morale is very good within the business.

And is the changing promotional strategy helping to drive sales?

It is. I think customers really like the fact that we have been reducing our multibuy offers and it means they can now buy what they actually want at more consistently low prices. It was always a long-term strategy and we are now starting to see the benefits.

And are you ready for the big Easter push?

Yes, the Easter range is already doing very well, in particular our own label chocolate eggs. We only launched them a couple of years ago and they are already starting to take a bite out of the branded ones. Of course, we will also have some great prices on fresh lamb as we get closer to the day itself.