Waitrose has restructured its head office team, as it aims to improve service standards and availability levels across its store estate.
The Grocer understands the majority of the changes are focused on Waitrose’s Bracknell HQ, which has been renamed internally as its ‘Retail Support Centre’. It has seen the creation of a dedicated ‘retail service & standards team’, which will work with Waitrose store teams nationwide, and those run by third parties.
The new team is responsible for setting standards across stores, for example in the way partners interact with customers in stores, as well as consistency of displays and the look and feel of stores across regions.
Waitrose has traditionally traded on the perception that its high-end stores offer superior customer service and a more welcoming environment compared with its traditional big four rivals. However, over the past couple of years, customers have increasingly complained that these standards have slipped, amid wider struggles at the John Lewis Partnership.
While it has continued to lead the Grocer 33 for its service levels, an inconsistency of standards store to store has been one of the reasons highlighted as being behind Waitrose’s loss of market share to M&S over the past couple of years.
The move to establish the new team is reflective of a broader attempt by execs to reset the dial within Waitrose following JLP’s return to profit in March. Partnership CEO Nish Kankiwala and outgoing chairman Sharon White relaunched the retailer’s strategy, with a promise to “unashamedly” focus on the retail basics.
As a result, Waitrose will invest £1bn in modernising its store estate by 2027. It is also investing in new AI forecasting technology, and other initiatives aimed at improving availability levels in stores.
In addition to its 329 stores, Waitrose has a network of franchise stores in petrol forecourts, service stations and internationally, for example the Middle East. It also has supply arrangements with Dobbies Garden Centres, Scottish retailer Margiotta and Alliance Stores in the Channel Islands.
Rather than the creation of a brand-new function, the new team has been described by a source with knowledge of the changes as more of a “consolidation of existing functions”, into a team with a specific focus on the presentation and standards of customer service within stores.
The head office restructure follows a broader shake-up of working hours at store level, as part of its Simpler Shops programme, as well as the closure of Waitrose’s Enfield fulfilment centre in July, with the loss of more than 500 jobs.
Figures obtained by The Telegraph in May revealed that the broader changes had seen JLP’s headcount fall by 3,800 over the previous year.
Waitrose did not confirm if any roles had been lost as part of any restructure. It is understood that all affected partners were offered roles within the new structure. The latest changes are not thought to have directly affected the structure of Waitrose stores, or supply chain.
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