Mary, queen of shoppers

Susan Griffin finds out how.

AS millions of shoppers hit the sales, retailers will be rubbing their hands with glee to the sound of ringing tills, but they’ll also be keeping a wary eye out for one particular shopper.

Mary Portas, the self-styled Queen of Shops, has spent the last few years helping failing retail shops and overhauling local charity stores. Now, she’s coming to the aid of consumers in Mary Portas: Secret Shopper.

The retail guru is working with well-known brands and high street chains to ensure shoppers are receiving the customer service they deserve.

And that’s for one reason: “The so-called service industry has become a faceless, ‘I couldn’t give a monkey’s’ business,” says the flame-haired Portas in her typical no-nonsense manner. “I’m looking at businesses where I can go, ‘Are you genuinely putting the customer first?’.”

She’s sitting on a sofa in a private members’ club looking effortlessly glamorous in skinny jeans, a grey wool knit jumper and lots of bangles that clink loudly as she gesticulates wildly. “I think we’re one of the worst countries in the world for customer service now,” she sighs. “Look at Tesco Metro supermarkets. Nobody even says ‘Hello’, it’s just beep, beep, ‘Have you got a Clubcard?’ They don’t even give you the price, you’ve got to look at the machine. It’s just tragic. It’s like we’ve lost all type of communication or any care for it.”

Her exasperated tone says it all. She’s fed up with “the fat cat companies making a serious amount of money but not offering a voice to the consumer”

– and she’s ready to take them to task over it.

And if anyone can, Portas can. The 50-year-old has spent her entire career working within the retail industry, from her humble beginnings as a Saturday girl in John Lewis, to being credited with transforming Harvey Nichols into a household name in the early Nineties.

In 1997 she set up her brand communication agency Yellowdoor, which has helped the likes of Waitrose, Clarks, Oasis, Clinique and Louis Vuitton, and in 2005 began her weekly retail column for The Telegraph, which inspired her TV shows.

“When retail is done right, a day at the shops is one of the most exciting and fun things to do, but a bad experience can really pull your day down,”

she says.

Not that Portas’s disdain is solely reserved for retail shops, she says, recalling one particular restaurant encounter: “I once said to this waiter, ‘Can you talk me through the wine list?’ and he said, ‘Your guess is as good as mine’.

Portas believes it doesn’t take a lot to create a positive customer experience and in each episode asks the same questions: “Is this a lovely place? Is it caring for me as a customer? Do these people serve me and do they have product knowledge?”

She goes undercover and talks to shoppers before taking complaints to the top, but as you’d expect from large companies boasting slick PR machines, she’s encountered a lot of resistance.

“But that’s what makes good TV,” she laughs.

“They go, ‘We look after the customer’, and then you show them undercover footage. Then they say, ‘We trained them’ and you find out the training is a notice on the back of the door that says, ‘Smile before you go on stage’. You have to wonder why they aren’t giving their staff passion, training and time.”

Portas has two teenagers from her previous marriage to a Unilever executive (she has since come out as gay and made a civil partnership last year with Grazia magazine’s fashion editor Melanie Rickey) and just as she has instilled in her children that they deserve nothing less than the best service, so she’s determined to do the same for the Great British public. And if it’s not happening, she says, we must learn to complain.

“We are a bit apathetic when it comes to bad service, but vote with your feet and just don’t turn up,” she says.

And there’s always the internet: “People can go on Twitter or put something online and at the click of a button let the world know about their shopping experience.”

She plans to set up an online forum to run in conjunction with the new series. “I don’t want a country of angry people, but I want people to feel they can really say, ‘I’m not being looked after’ and some of these brands can be shamed.”

Fast fashion stores such as Primark have a lot to answer for, she says. “We’ve ended up with sales teams just stocking shop floors instead of any type of service – I think that’s criminal. On one of the days I was filming, I went into one of the fast fashion stores and there were clothes on the floor. The sales team were huffing and piling it back up.

There were 40 in one queue, 45 in another and people were just putting up with it.”

She found the biggest complaint was the fitting rooms. “The queues, the smell – it was awful, and then I looked at the staff. They were like, ‘Only four garments, only four garments’. I mean, why would they be motivated? The customers were hating it, the staff were hating it and you’ve got this bloke in head office who thinks it’s all all right because he’s making profits.”

During the series Portas looks into ways to motivate and inspire the staff, which in turn benefit the consumer. At the very least, she hopes the show will make people question where they shop.

■ Mary Portas: Secret Shopper begins on Channel 4 on Wednesday, January 19.

The Portas store stars:

MARY PORTAS gives her seal of approval to the following shops for their customer service:

■ Pret A Manger – The energy, everything’s fresh and they always greet you and try and serve you as fast as possible.

■ Gap – There’s just this wonderful energy put in and the sales team have an upbeat freshness about them, which I think is good.

■ John Lewis – I think it’s extraordinarily good.

The staff know their stuff, they’re pleasant and they go out of their way.

■ Waitrose – It’s a great business. You’ve got the training schemes and people and they have a lot of ‘lifers’ there. You feel consistency and care.

■ Apple – They offer one of the best retail experiences there is today. They give free advice, train people and the staff know their products.