Customer Experience Superheroes - Series 7 Episode 3 - Purpose and Quality in Retail Experience with expert Ian Scott

Ian Scott is a rare breed in customer experience; a retail expert. His depth of knowledge on what does and doesn't create short stand out and long term memories is forensic. With a passion for helping retailers thrive against a challenging outlook Ian shares his vision regarding the changing role of the retail store, and why this is the best news for customer experience.

In conversation with series host, global customer experience specialist, Christopher Brooks, Ian brings to life the transformation of Nike bringing us insights straight from the table of strategic customer intent at Nike. Nike prove their superhero credentials and Ian demonstrates how experimenting is a critical superhero trait in CX. 

Once you've listened to Ian speak on retail experience, you will wonder how you ever lived without his views (and advice). 

Enjoy the time with Ian and follow him at https://www.linkedin.com/in/ian-scott-0534694/, to see more of his inspirational insights.  
 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:11

Hello and welcome to the latest episode of ClientShips Customer Experience Superheroes. This is the podcast series that brings you ideas, insights, and inspiration from the world of customer experience. We believe to be a progressive, proficient and professional customer experience practitioner, you need certain superpowers. In this series, we explore those CX superpowers and bring them to life. Today we meet up with Ian Scott. Ian Scott is a giant in the world of retail. His understanding of retail marketing strategies, his appreciation of global trends, and his sharing of shopper insights have made him a regular go-to in the world of retail for many in the world of customer experience. He's always got an eye on what's coming next, and he can connect what happens in the world of retail back to the value it drives for customers. We caught up with Ian to understand just how impactful the pandemic has been on the world of retail, on what the signs of recovery look like. So delight to be catching up with Ian Scott. Hi Ian, how are you doing? I'm very well, Christopher. How are you? Yeah, I'm well, thank you. Look, Ian, I've been a big fan of your content on um LinkedIn. It's it's difficult sometimes to spot good quality content amongst the uh the mediocre stuff that's out there. But you're just like a beacon uh when it comes to retail. So I'm so grateful that you uh you publish in an environment that I see it. So so thank you for that in the first instance. You're welcome, thanks. And and and the re the reason I think I like is because you know you're a man who the word expert um through experience uh really really does apply. Now we're gonna talk about the the um arguably the increasing importance of retail in customer experience, and we'll come on to that. But before we do, uh we've quite a broad um listening audience around the world. Would you mind giving them a kind of a canter intro to to you and your world?

SPEAKER_03 2:19

Certainly, yes. Uh thanks, Christopher. So I've been working in and around retail for just over 20 years, and I sort of started working in uh point of sale and retail design agencies as a salesman. So I got exposed to a lot of aspects of the design and the communication areas. Uh, ran my own business for seven years as well, which was a fascinating process, sort of designing store displays with a lot of different clients across, particularly across the electrical area. So I worked with people like Dyson and Samson and Siemens and Neff uh creating their environments and learned a lot about that. Uh, then I got involved in a little bit in the behavioral psychology side, which is something that has always fascinated me, particularly in retail, is understanding the how and the why aspect, not just the what. Um and it was really interesting to get a better insight into just basically how humans behave fundamentally and how that understanding gets applied into the retail experience. And then for a couple of years, I worked for a company called Tag, who are one of the largest uh marketing production companies around the world, which gave me the wonderful opportunity to travel around the world. And it gave me an opportunity to visit some amazing places, and I was always able to take time and visit the retail landscape there as well, which I found gave me uh a lot more relevance and context when I was talking about regional variances in retail, for example, as well as opportunities to see some of the most amazing uh retail structures in the world. So it gave me a lot more credibility when I was talking about the differences and then the amazing examples of best practice uh around the place as well. And I started my consultancy back in July, primarily looking at the retail trends and the developments and changes that are going on in retail, um, particularly influenced quite heavily in the last year, obviously, with COVID, where retail has been at the forefront of the impact. Um so it's been quite a fascinating journey to really look at the impact of that and how retail may change as we move beyond the pandemic as well.

SPEAKER_00 4:17

Brilliant, excellent. Well, I think um, you know, if you look for me when you talk about relevance and context, that's what experience and expertise is about. And you know, that taking time out to look at what's going on around you rather than um just that what's in front of you, it nourishes you, it furnishes you, and it allows you now to have a kind of a broader, a broader perspective on things. And I think that's so important. I've been amazed that just this whole area of retail recovery seems to have become a bit of a um a money trap. It seems to be everyone who feels they everyone goes to retailers, so everyone who's loosely connected to the world of retail now has an opinion and an approach that's gonna recover the high street. Whereas someone like yourself, you know what you know change means, you know the what the fundamentals are. Do you get a perspective that actually we're going to see a seismic shift? Or deep down, kind of that human psychology of that need for human interaction is going to still continue.

SPEAKER_03 5:22

I certainly think that need will continue. You know, a a friend of mine who's a psychologist who and works within the behavioral psychology in retail, you know, he has a wonderful little statement saying 40 years of the internet won't change, 2,000 years of genetic engineering. And and it and I know what he means. It's the context of humans are socially interactive creatures. It's why we love going to a pub to chat with your friends when you could save a fortune and buy the drink and have it at home. It's not the drink, that's just the connector that allows you to socially interact. And we are we like to interact, and we we've seen there's been lots of concerns about mental health for the last tenants because we have been deprived of that social interaction and we've seen how it can affect people. Um, and that's where things like restaurants, cinemas, even go to the beach or or something like that, as well as shopping, are things that there's a key differentiator in those physical experiences, and it is that interaction, it's the element of emotional engagement. You know, we we are born as emotional creatures. If you think a baby either cries or laughs, it's an emotional response. And other behavioral aspects are learned through society. So underneath all of it, there's this emotional triggers. If we like something, we will buy it. If we don't like it, you know, and a lot of those decisions, particularly, are completely irrational. Yeah, and that's particularly where the physical space can help because the online activities are a lot more transactional, you know. The clever ones will add elements of emotion into it, but you're going on there for the convenience of click buy done. And so they're simplifying it, so they're cutting out that emotional engagement. That's where Amazon has done so well because they start off selling books, and the great thing is the product is exactly the same wherever you go. So there's no concern about, oh, do I need to touch and feel it? Fashion is a harder sell, you know, and fashion suffers online because you get these people doing what's called bracketing and go, I'll buy four, I'll keep one and return three. And returns take wipe out a third of the profit of online sales. So a lot of companies cannot make a profit in online selling. It's also why Primark flatly refuse to go online. Everyone's going, Oh, they're losing millions. But they their model is they buy everything by the pallet load and shipping. It's about the bulk which allows them to keep um their costs so low. Online isn't like that. You're selling individual things, you can't ship them by the pallet load and save money on transport. So their model, it would cost them a fortune to set up online. So I understand that, but they very cleverly uh leverage their social media. They're one of the best uh UK companies that are getting social media engagement or sourcing stats on it recently. So they recognize that strength and they're going, well, online isn't always the answer to everything. They're going, we'll weather this storm, we'll lose the money now. But we found when all the lock when the lockdowns have stopped in the last 10 months, people have been queuing overnight to get into Primark. You know, it's astonishing because they have that that loyalty and curiosity and desire to go in. So, yeah, physical retail offers that social interaction, but the emotional engagement that is much harder to replicate online. And that's why you even see online giants like Amazon, you know, they bought Whole Foods Food Chain, which is a massive retailer, particularly in North America. And they've opened Amazon Go stores, they've opened the Amazon book stores and the four-star stores, because they recognize that physical offers an element that you can't replicate. So it's almost restrictive not to offer all of the opportunities for your customer to engage on whatever level they want to. And also interestingly, this is one of the things that I always find quite amusing is your physical retail is dead. Before COVID, across all channels globally, 83% of retail sales are still in a physical store. 83%. That is not a category that's dead. You know, it can afford to halve and still be the biggest player, you know. And I saw a wonderful chart tracking online and uh offline sales, and you see the little dip in April, but the the scale of physical retail still dwarfs online, so it is still a massive player. Now it's a historical player, and I always liken this to uh television viewing, you know, for BBC and ITV. When Sky came in, BBC and ITV didn't die. It was just more choice, and it finds a natural medium. And online is growing, you know, it's still in its infancy as a player within the retail, so it's gonna grow and it will have a bigger share than it's had before. It will not replace physical, um, uh uh, but it will be one of the key parts. And I think moving forward, what you're going to find is you know, historically, the shop was the place where you pick up the product to physically own it. You know, we've seen that weakening, but I think as we move forward, you're gonna find the physical shop. Shop could be the start of the journey, not the end. You might go in the shop to have a look and then go home and buy it on your phone. Um, or you might not. And the interesting thing is you're gonna have websites, apps, social media, physical store, and they're all gonna be symbiotic, they're all gonna work together, and you can tap in at any point. And all you need to do is offer a seamless, consistent process for your customer so they can access it wherever they want. So it needs to be joined together, but it also needs to be consistent. You know, online offers only don't work these days. You know, you can't go it's 10% cheap online because your customers going, but I might want to go in the shop. Why do I get why are you gonna penalize me for going to that shop you spent millions making to excite me and then tell me it's gonna cost more? So that's what's gonna happen.

SPEAKER_00 10:48

There's a lot in there, Ian. I'll I'll come back to Seth. No, it's great. There's there's two or three pieces I want to come back to in there. Let's start with the the point you make about the online. Uh, we had uh Dr. Mane uh Marina Shapira on the uh podcast a while ago who was showing us the change in behaviors for consumers online. And what she saw was whereas historically it was more browse and then buy, which was to the delight of the advertisers, it was now buy. It was go straight to the things you want. So I was bypassing all the opportunity to browse, and therefore all the advertising revenue, which props up a lot of of what happens, has gone. So when you re so actually the the business model for online has changed also, um, and it's no longer as attractive. So to your point, if you then can't afford for a returns policy to work for you, this this is this is no longer a viable option for you. And with dropshipping being something that you know everyone, including my 14-year-old son, can do, it's completely changed the retail landscape or the online shopping landscape. So I completely concur with that. The really key point you you mentioned there, uh, you know, imagine sitting in that ideation room with Amazon and they're saying, look, the very last thing we're gonna do, I get it, there's no emotional engagement in our experience. I get that we've made it too functional. I get it's efficient, and efficient can be forgotten. And uh, and you know, something that's engaging will always trump that. However, we're an online retailer, the last thing we're gonna do is go onto the high street. It must have been the very last thing they wanted to do almost, so you can imagine it, until they kind of realize, oh my goodness, it's exactly what we have to do. And I think with them and you know, Apple stores where you know sales don't matter, it's it's about you know putting the complaints department into a store and calling them geniuses and making you queue outside of the store rather than 45 minutes on the phone, yeah, is it's exactly the same thing. But it's actually seeing how we use this space more intelligently. And you mentioned about you know saying, well, actually, let's think about not as the point of transaction where you collect, but as part of the overall buying experience. How much of a change is that for some of the traditional brands that we you know we know and have become kind of the those who are propping up the high street? How much do they have to change to for that? I know you said it doesn't work, it won't be the same for everyone, but if we were to take a major kind of you know high street chain, how would it need to evolve itself to become a destination for browsing and then allow the transacting to happen online?

SPEAKER_03 13:12

Unfortunately, COVID has been a rather brutal Darwinist sort of uh filter for survival. Um, we we've we've seen a lot of retailers that were not in a strong financial position fall by the wayside very quickly because they had no margin for error, there were no reserves to cope with this problem. But we're reaching the point now where very good retailers are also teetering on the edge. Um and so we've seen some adapt really quickly. We've had Arcadia and Debonham's fall by they were underinvested in the natural development of retail before COVID perverted the whole process as well. Um, but then you do see others that do respond very quickly and adapt. You know, I did a big research study on Nike recently, who, to be fair, were probably the best in the first place.

SPEAKER_00 13:56

Ian, I have to say, that is one of the most incredible pieces of research I've seen. I absolutely love that. Do you know what it transformed my understanding of Nike? I I significantly changed my view on them and their intentions solely because of the piece of work you did. So congratulations on that. Thank you. We must share that with with the listeners because uh it was just I was blown away by it. Sorry, sorry, Carrie.

SPEAKER_03 14:19

No, no, thank you. But it I mean, they were already doing it well, but you could you they were a great example of how they adapted. I mean, Nike succeed, you know, I've I've talked about and and discussed and presented that that report to a number of people, and they're going, well, yeah, but I'm an independent retailer with one shop. I can't afford to build a Nike house of innovation over four floors. And I went, no, but what you've got to understand is their principles are scalable. You know, first and foremost, they understand and know their customer. I mean, that is absolutely critical. Otherwise, you're guessing. And retail's an expensive place to start guessing because you can spend hundreds of thousands of pounds. And if you get it wrong, it just is just gone, and you just you just look woeful next to your competitors. So they first and fundamentally understood that. They also understood the role of their stores. I spent a couple of hours with a lady called Charmaine Mason who runs Nike Town in London, and she kindly took my son around, gave him a tour. Um, it was wonderful. It was it was just really nice. Got some dead points that weekend. Uh I did, I did. It was it was I mean, if I backtrack a little bit, what what what I was doing was um I used I he was nine at the time, and I used him as a person to go and visit a number of stores. He wanted to, he wanted to buy a pair of Adidas Yeezy trainers, which are these limited editions things that go for thousands. Uh he wanted to see some. So I said, okay, let's go down to London because we're in Leicester. I'll take you around some shops. And I got him to review the shots. So I wrote an article from his perspective, and he it was his comments that I included. But I did take him into Nike Town, and he went, Dad, I'm not going to find Adidas Yeezys in there. I went, no, but just come and have a look. And I had to peel his fingers off the door frame to get him out again. And what happened was um a retail director from Nike commented, and he said, You know, when I question your son's taste in trainers, I love the fact that he enjoyed Nike, you know. And he said, if you want to put the proper Nike Tan experience, get in touch. So I got in touch and he goes, I love, I love the attitude of your son and stuff like that. And it arranged, and Charmaine took him around for two hours on a Sunday morning and he was designing his own shoes, he was learning about the history of Jordan shoes. There was a little workout area, and they'd have an area called the Cage, which is a big metal sort of structure where you can try on football boots and kick a ball, and the the staff are FA qualified coaches, you know, it's those sort of attentions to detail. But at the end I was chatting with her, and I said, you know, how much is this store about putting money in the till? She goes, We take money, but that's not why we're here. She says, if I spend two hours with someone like your son, and then they stand in front of me, get their phone out, and buy those products off Amazon in front of me, I'm happy because I'm here to facilitate the sale of Nike products. I'm not here to fill Nike Towns cash registers. And it always resonated with me because certainly the big global flagship experience stores, it's very hard to make a profit from the sales in that space. But these clever companies like Starbucks and Apple and Nike, they understand that they're not even a lost leader because that's still a negative spin. They are there to facilitate sales through wholesale channels, online, you know, something that might happen in six months' time. So they're almost the embodiment of how a lot of retail can go. Now, a single independent retailer won't build a space like that. But if you understand your customer, you can take those engagement principles and scale them to fit your own budget. So, Nike, you know, you know, their touch points are on so many levels. You know, the stores are experiential. You know, I was in their store in Shanghai and they have an amazing H room area, and it's got an LED screen on the floor and a seven-meter high tower that runs content. And they had a shoe that used very small beads as suspension and had amazing displays over these beads, and the idea is that you squash on the sole. And they had a ball pit, it was about 10 meters by five meters, and it was a meter deep with balls, and they were used illuminating the LED screen underneath, so you're getting these amazing effects and color changes. And the idea was you try on the shoe and you just go and play in the ball pit, you know. And I just thought, what a wonderful way, because the ball pit is a visualization of the balls used in the suspension. Sure, yeah, but it's like go and have fun, and they know people will then share it on Instagram, so it becomes a vehicle where the customers enjoy it and they then go out and they share it. We're in this social media age where if people like it, it's on Instagram, it's on Facebook, and it becomes self-promoting. And so you can but you can take that principle and scale it down to a little event in your corner shop, but then they connect everything, you know, their social media is fabulous. They're Instagram posts, you know, and they they talk about things, but their social media side, they have a customer service team. And if people are typing and commenting on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram, there are certain keywords that will trigger the customer service team. And so an individual, a human then interacts with you wearing the Nike hat, but you have a human-to-human conversation. So you have this wonderful banter between two individuals through the Nike Twitter sphere, and so and a lot of companies do, it's not only Nike, but it was just a great example. So, you know, you some people going, oh my god, I was gonna go for a run, but I had a bottle of wine last night. And the response was that's still carb loading, you know how your next run goes, you know. And so they build these communities and it and it's a big investment, and they say it is a huge investment, but what they gain from it is fabulous, you know, and their apps have great interaction. They have a wonderful app called the Sneakers app, and these are for the hardcore sneaker heads who collect limited edition, and so they'll do crazy things like, right, we're launching the latest LeBron basketball sneaker with his own colour range. You've got to get to the LA Lakers basketball court 12 o'clock tomorrow to get it, and it's almost like a you know, a toy hunt, yeah. Um, and and it's very niche, and you're sat there in London going, Well, I can't get to LA, but it creates this mystique and engagement. And and I think sneakerheads are five percent of the buyers of their product, but that app has generated 750 million pounds worth of sales directly through the app, yeah, you know, so they're niche, but you get the halo effect because these are the top of the area, and you can you can highlight these amazing limited edition things. Most of your customers won't buy them, they don't want them, but they love the fact that you do them, and that's the power of a Halo product. You know, it's why car companies invest in Formula One. You're not going to buy a Formula One car, you're gonna buy a little hatchback, but it's nice knowing that the company is at the cutting edge of technology when they're making a £20,000 hatchback, and that's what Nike leverages really well.

SPEAKER_00 20:39

The aspects of emotional engagement in that, you can almost feel it as you're describing. I mean, you do describe things brilliantly, but the way you're describing it, you can see that importance for me now. As soon as I get a message back from Nike about my world, not about my trainers, about my world. Yes, I want to engage with them. And I think that's my I'd love to kind of actually I came across it not too long ago, the head of CX um was running a forum, uh, which I want to get into because I'd love to understand how they do it. I I've got a fascination with them now, probably largely because of what you shared with us, but I've got a belief that we we have a thing called customer standards, and I would imagine in their customer standards, hardwired into anything they do, is that we must deepen the customers' emotional engagement with us through this initiative, which forces them then, when they're working in a very digital world, to connect with the customers and to make it probably an omni-channel experience. I love the fact that you know the head of Nike Town is there in service of the customer, they're not in service of the sale. They know that that engagement they've created with your son is something that's going to last a long time. But if they if they'll only buy Nike now, we'll only buy Nike.

SPEAKER_03 21:52

Two hours of investment, lifelong phase costs a bloody fortune. Thank you very much. Director of Nike, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:02

But it's that's the purpose, you know. We're there to you know put the customer's world at the heart of ours, and it gives them a purpose. And I think from what you showed on on Nike, it showed that behind the scenes there's an awful lot going on. Yeah, and we've we've seen it in some of the campaigns that they've supported, where they've sacrificed, they've compromised on on sales for the sake of what they stand for, which is to you know create a better world that they they are a part of, and uh and they want to attract the right sort of customers.

SPEAKER_03 22:31

They do. I mean, what was quite interesting, you're probably referring to the Colin Copernick Take the Knee advert. That was one of the first ones where you know this is uh a quarterback in a US football team who controversially refused to stand for the national anthem because he was concerned about police brutality and racism, and it creates a huge uproar, and Trump got involved condemning them, and there was a standoff with the NFL and all sorts. And and this guy, this was what, 2016, and the guy lost his job, and he has not worked, he's not played since. Um, and so Nike embraced that, and and they, you know, they said, you know, stand for a cause, even if it even if it costs you everything. And it caused huge uproar, and there were people burning their Nike trainers and all sorts, but interestingly, when you analyze the impact, obviously the social coverage went through the roof, their shares dropped and then recovered to a higher level. So, and I and I'm not sure it was a cynical campaign to earn more money, they they were just going, we believe in this cause, and they've they've done other things since the George Floyd uh killing, uh, and they've done a lot of things with diversity as well, which is wonderful. And and what was interesting is when I announced I was going to publish that report on Nike, I got an invitation to connect from a chap called Toby Barnes, and he immediately messaged me going, I'm really interested in reading your report because he was senior director for customer experience at Nike. He goes, I wrote our direct-to-consumer strategy and I wrote our COVID strategy. And I went, Wow, no pressure, I'm basically critiquing your job. But Toby was fabulous because I said, Well, could I talk to you about this? And he went on a Zoom call and he helped me join all the dots for the report to make sure it's cohesive because I was catching information from loads of different sources. And it was just fascinating because when you talk to him, you understand that he goes, Absolutely, these things are principles. I did a section on what I call their social conscience, and he goes, This stuff is really important. And he says, you know, a lot of a lot of the times it's a cynical marketing ploy, like sustainability, and we have the greenwashing where companies are tokenism to try and look like they care. And I really got a sense from Toby that this is serious stuff for Nike. And he said, please emphasize this category because it is a key part of what Nike is. And I found that quite reassuring. And I know there's been you know they've got into a lot of controversial areas. There were issues a few years ago about sweatshops, and as a big corporate company, there's always a concern about the globalism and thing and capitalism and stuff. But I think they do go about it the right way with the right intentions of doing things for the right thing. And you know, one of the things I did love as well is you suddenly have all these diversity mannequins appearing. Um, one of my biggest LinkedIn posts was one of uh it's a prosthetic limbed mannequin in the kids' area, but what a it wasn't a big feature. Look at our our prosthetic limb, it was there amongst others. I went into the store to look at new displays and I missed it twice walking past it. And I I'm there as a retail expert to look at and I loved it, and they did they did the same, they did uh a plus size mannequin. Um, and there was a lady in the Daily Telegraph, Tanya Gold, I think her name was, who it was obscene, disgusting, this horrid, horror and torrid of abuse about how it was encouraging people to be lazy. There was a massive backlash. She actually helped promote the cause because there was a huge backlash, you know, because the Bill, I can't remember his surname now, the guy that created Nike, can't be if I've forgotten his name, but um, you know, his statement was if you have a body, you're an athlete. And I thought that's a perfect answer to that. Absolutely. But but again, they you just see these mannequins, they're just in there, and it's just like, well, yeah, so what you know, and then and then Toby said there was deliberately no intention to promote the fact that the mannequin are being created, they were just put into the displays, which to me that attitude speaks volumes of the approach.

SPEAKER_00 26:07

Absolutely. Well, I I think what it gets to is the fact that you would expect it from from Nike. It's kind of is what they would do. Uh it was, I mean, you mentioned it was Toby Barnes that was with the chap I was I was referring to as well, because and you talk about standards and principles. I think they've got to a point where, and it goes back to looking at the core of why we are here. Everyone who has a body is an athlete, so therefore we have an invested interest in what that means in that world, and everything that comes with it, we can't pick and choose, we take that as our concept and that's our purpose, and we build our principles around that. And I think one of the things that is really encouraging with Nike is uh the world we work in in customer experience is continuous improvement. If you make if you make create a better outcome, you raise the standards, so therefore, you've got to do more, you've got to do more, you've got to do more. So, therefore, you've got to have things that you've done in the past, which at the time were bad decisions, but you've learned from it and moved on. And I think you know, we have to be very accepting and accommodating. And also, when it comes to raising the bar, it's improving the experience. And I think this is what I really take from from Nike, which is really exciting, is that actually in that group of who do we make things better for? We include our competitors, we include customers, employees, our supply chain, our partners, our communities, society. But also, if we can improve things for our competitors, we can show them what good looks like. They raise the game, and that's good for everyone else. It's not, you know, that's it's it's a it's a it's a very advanced way of looking at things, but you have to work to make things better for your competitors because that will make things better for you and then better for everyone else.

SPEAKER_03 27:41

Absolutely. And it is interesting because Adidas have opened a fabulous store in London um about two years ago, uh, opposite Selfridge's called the LDN store, the London store. And I walked in, and and you can almost see how the Nike House of Innovation has set the challenge. Yeah, exactly. And certainly from a customer experience point of view, there are some amazing things in Adidas that have moved the bar even higher. And one that I particularly love was they got uh a find me option on the app. And anyone, I mean, you know, you've got kids as well, you know, you're standing in Sports Direct and you go, I want to try that one and that one, I want them in size five, and then you wait for 10 minutes hoping they're gonna come back with these shoes, while your kids are bored and there's screaming people running around. It's not a nice experience. What Adidas has set up uh in this store is if there's a sneaker or a trainer you want to try, you get the app out and you scan it and you go, right, I want this in a size nine. Click the find me bit and then you carry on shopping. And this is a three-story store, and it will it will tag your phone, and the member of staff will find you if you're two floors higher up and bring the shoes to you, so you carry on shopping. And I thought, what a lovely little touch. Because all you need is one focus group about buying shoes for kids, and that'll be an issue at the top of the list. It's one of those dreaded necessary evils for parents. And another one that I particularly like is they have smart mirrors in the changing room, so the clothes have RFID tags. So you go into the changing room, you literally hold the product up in front of the mirror, and all the information about it appears on the mirror the materials, the sizing, how it works, features and benefits and everything. But if you've only got the wrong size, you know, when it's like in a fashion store, it's like, oh, I've got to sort of half get dressed and scuffle about across the floor, worried about whether you should leave your stuff in the changing room or not. With here, you just go, right, I've got a medium, one a size large. You click it, and a member of staff will bring it to you. Um and what I love is both of those are technology for the benefit of the consumer. You know, time and time again, I've seen an idea and you see it on Dragon's Den, I've got this idea, how do I make it work? The answers are what does the customer need? How do I make technology to improve that? Yeah, it's the tail wagging the dog. So, what I love is consumer-centric. This is a pain for the staff, they're the ones running around all over there. It doesn't matter, it makes it easier for the customer.

SPEAKER_00 29:53

But it also is important to make sure that I, as a customer, get that interaction on a positive. So if I have someone come back from the stock room and says, sorry, we don't have that, that's a negative experience. They probably can't, they probably can't say, well, actually, here's how we're going to sort it. We're going, you know, we know three stores down, we can get it. But actually, now what you've turned that from is a negative to actually when that member of staff comes and finds me, that's a good outcome because they've brought to me the product. So you talk about personalization and tailoring and customization. There it is. That member of staff has come to fulfill my requirement as I wanted at a time that's convenient to me. And I think that's where retail is going to have its advantage over something like online. It can do online is trying to do that, make it more convenient. Ah, yeah, but in retail, we can make it even more convenient. Because what we can do is rather than when you're sitting there just browsing aimlessly through Facebook, you now can continue to walk through our store and then we'll give you the purchase as and when it's right for you. I think it's fascinating. I mean, this is this is a brilliant space, um, Ian. And I think you know, you should have more of a voice in in our customer experience world because seeing how you can connect the experience you have of how to make retail environments work with those emotional triggers that are really important for a seamless customer experience journey. And I think what you've described with the changing room is one of the reasons people go, I'll do it online. Because actually, I don't, I'm a bit body conscious. Uh, the kids are sitting outside, I've got to run across the store. It's an awful experience, and we've all been there. So, actually, for some reason, you go, I'll do it online. So, actually, no, let's work harder at the retail experience and make it more engaging and enjoyable. And by doing so, people are saying, This is quite fun, actually. You know, it's quite real, it's more engaging, and there's loads of those sort of opportunities. I'd love to get you back another time to just go through two or three examples because I think the way you talk about it is they're just coming to life in my head. But I'm conscious that you know we need to make sure that people can find you. So, what's what's the best way that people can find you, Ian, if they want to connect with you and talk to you more about this fascinating world?

SPEAKER_03 32:01

Probably one of the best ways is through LinkedIn, if that's possible, is Ian Scott, and I can share a link to my profile if that would be helpful as well.

SPEAKER_00 32:09

We'll put it into the description underneath the uh podcast if that's all right.

SPEAKER_03 32:13

Yeah, certainly. Um, and I've got uh and an email address which is a bit of a convoluted one. It's Ian Ian 608316 at gmail.com. But yeah, certainly, I mean I often say LinkedIn is that if you want to spend a couple of minutes browsing, you'll get a sense of my thoughts and what I do, and it and it and it's it's sort of like a living example, and and it will give people a much clearer idea of my thinking around things, and they can then just you know decide whether that's compatible with what they're trying to do as well. Um, and I'm also just launching a subscription service around some of the retail change elements as well, which is um a way that I can sort of send five pieces of content a week through to people, um, which is generic, but the idea is you'd be looking at store designs, sustainability actions within retail, industry reports, new innovations. And the idea is to sort of feed with a lot of inspiration so that you can charge your own creative people to look at new ideas, you can reconstitute into your own insights, uh, engage with customers, uh, you know, talking about the issues going on in their retail world as well. Uh so that's something I've just set up uh in the last couple of weeks. So, again, if people want to know about that, then please get in touch.

SPEAKER_00 33:23

Brilliant. Well, I think there's a couple of topics I'd love to explore further with you. One of those is sustainability. Um, so uh we we must we must reconvene and do this again. It's been an absolute delight to spend some time with you. I think you bring a dimension to our world which many just superficially touch and they don't realize just how significant it can be in creating or inspiring memorable experiences. And I think your son is testament to that. You've got someone there who has switched brand because of the experience, purely because of the experience. And it might be considered to be over the top, but actually, to your point, it could be scowled, and it's no excuse. Everyone can can achieve it, but you've got to be a you've got to understand, it's back to that point about relevance and context. You need an expert in this space because you can't get it wrong. If you get it wrong, it's too expensive, isn't it? You've got to get it right. So thank you so much. And with people like you out there guiding and advising, and I think it gives us a fighting chance to make sure the detail are pained. So thank you.

SPEAKER_03 34:22

No, thank you, Christmas. Really enjoyed it.

SPEAKER_00 34:24

Wonderful. Okay, thank you very much.

SPEAKER_03 34:26

Cheers.