Analysis Of Waitrose Customer Service

Waitrose is one of the biggest grocery stores in the UK. For such a big industry, it might be hard to monitor where it needs to make improvements, but Waitrose is doing its best to provide excellent customer service.

Competitive advantage is an ability that allows business to make its work the best that its competitors by improving customer service, quality of products, staff attitude to customers, in case of grocery stores industries. With every year, competitive advantage grows and Waitrose needs to adapt to new changes in market conditions.

Now, many UK supermarkets use different competitive strategies for growing and attracting customers. Waitrose customer service strategy is simple: the industry focuses on providing fresh and quality products for customers and follow their own regulations what have a big impact on the level of customer’s satisfaction.

Many grocery stores have been actively developing their marketing strategy to stay competitive. Every one of them says that they are working to satisfy their customers.

All Waitrose’s competitors are working in the same industry and have the same sector. Waitrose’s competitors are Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Morrisons. In 2019, the two main Waitrose’s competitors are Aldi and Lidl. Their market share had a significant rise when Waitrose lose it.

Regularly, grocery stores making research how to improve their customer service. To continue to stay strong, Waitrose has effective strategies according to customer service. For example:

Not many grocery stores can boast about their own product, but Waitrose can. Waitrose provides their own product for a reasonable price to attract customers. But the reasonable price is not enough for customer’s satisfaction. The company must invest in improving quality and taste, especially in response to consumer demand for healthy and fresh food products. Providing all of these factors to customers will have a major impact on Waitrose’s reputation as a brand that offers quality products, increasing customers opinion about this industry for a better side and customers will come back to this store again and again.

Waitrose’s staff is well-known for their excellent communication skills. Employees have the ability to attract customers to themselves. Consumers need to feel that he is welcome here. Waitrose employee’s uniforms and smiles have a large impact on customer’s emotions and feelings during shopping. In addition, employees must always remember the rule which says that customers always right. It means that employee need to provide help, do not have argument with consumers and provide the right information about products.

Some grocery stores can have an issue with customers who buy products in large quantities. Waitrose offers a wide range of goods that might satisfy customers. Products which were bought in large numbers, will provide a big revenue for Waitrose.

High level of quality customer service is extremely important if Waitrose wants to save their potential customers and grow their company. Bad customer service may destroy Waitrose’s reputation as a grocery store.

Now, customers are more impatient that they used to be in the past. If customers were upset about customer service, they share their opinion quickly in the internet where they could be supported by other users.

Waitrose Company presents itself as a supermarket which main aims is to ensure that products and services are satisfying their customers. Waitrose’s main benefits are staff who always look at quality products or if the shelves are full.

Waitrose has a strong reputation about its service. When customers enter the store, they see the friendly and gentle atmosphere that surrounds them. Waitrose’s service is almost the same with its competitors, but staff friendly attitude to consumers increase customer’s loyalty.

In addition, Waitrose also well-known for its products. Fresh fruits and vegetables, just baked bread have much better quality than other supermarkets. As a result, Waitrose is more expensive to compare it with competitors, but the high prices depend on the service and products quality.

If Waitrose would not provide effective customer service, it would have a bad impact on Waitrose as a grocery store.

A large number of customers is a key factor t business success. However, companies which do not think about its customers and quality of goods/services, may experience negative things what will happen to the company.

As I said before, Waitrose has a good reputation for its quality products and services. If company will not pay any attention to quality, customers will stop buying the goods and probable change Waitrose to another grocery market, for example Sainsbury’s which has quality products too, but for more cheaper prices. Losing customers have a major impact on Waitrose’s profitability and reputation. In the future, it would be harder for company to attract new customers.

Secondly, communication with employees and consumers. Poor and unfriendly communication with people will cause bad gossips about Waitrose’s employees communication skills. The biggest impact on the customer’s opinion about business has communication skills. Customers do not like when employees behave rudely and with no respect to them. It means that the company does not solve any issues, do not provide help, etc. The effect is a bad reputation for Waitrose because of attitude to customers. Moreover, disrespectful attitude to employees will lead to their leaving the company.

The market share of 2019 shows that Waitrose has 7th place among other retail markets. Other Waitrose’s competitors are Tesco, Sainsbury’s, ASDA, Morrisons, Aldi and Lidl. The main “biggest” competitor is Tesco which has a market share of 26.4%. Tesco has already overtaken other stores because of its low prices and convenient locations around the United Kingdom. Second place is Sainsbury’s – a strong retail store too. It has success among society because of cheap prices and quality goods.

Now, people are searching for cheaper alternatives and discount supermarkets such as Lidl and Aldi. These both stores had an increasing of market share in comparison with other grocery stores. All these grocery store can overtake Waitrose without any problem. Appearing of low-cost supermarkets had caused a “price war” between stores. Retail markets started to cut their prices to save their market share.

Cutting costs could have a “good” and “bad” side. From one hand, if Waitrose will cut cost for products, but they still will be good quality, it will not have any impact on customers and they might buy more products because of decreasing in prices. From other hand, if Waitrose will cut cost according to their employee’s salaries, they will lose their loyalty to company and they might began searching for another job in Waitrose’s competitors stores.

The biggest impact on Waitrose’s market share has Lidl. By the last years, its market share increased to 7.7%, at the same time Waitrose still has 5%. So, cutting cost can be the only way to control market share and save it stable.

Waitrose company is proud to have their own standards. The industry believes that they are doing their best to satisfy their customers. What is more, Waitrose’s website page says that the company is working only with farmers who they know and trust their quality of products. They regularly make sure all the animals are healthy and suits all the legislation and regulations about food quality and hygiene.

Waitrose has set their own regulations to achieve their own aims and objectives. For grocery store it is easier to make a good business. Waitrose has their Constitution which based on clear priorities and principles. These principles lead to the progress that Waitrose is making for the environment, society and its partners.

Waitrose’s main goal is to give their customers confidence in the goods that they sell and the way how they sell them by increasing transparency in how products have been grown, sourced and made through conducting fair business and customer relationships.

Waitrose industry has set their own different regulation standards such as Waitrose Sustainability, Waitrose Fairtrade and Waitrose Partnership behaviours – Staff Code of Conduct.

Waitrose Sustainability regulation believes that company make an improvement for its business. Company tells its customers that they are protecting nature from pollution, have long-term relationship with farmers and producers who supply products to the stores and care about customer’s well-being.

In 2017, they had formed a partnership with FareShare to fight against hunger in poor countries and reduce waste from the food. Moreover, they have created an app which help to control food waste. By this action, could have quality food and donate it to people in need.

Fairtrade is a global organization that appeared in the UK more than 20 years by the Fairtrade Foundation.

Fairtrade makes sure that farmers and producers are earning the right salary that is higher than their cost of production, as well as improving working conditions.

Waitrose supports the Fairtrade organization for more than 10 years. Stores provide a wide range of Fairtrade products such as tea, coffee, chocolate and special sugar. The company assures that all the products are their own firm.

Waitrose Partnership behaviours – Staff Code of Conduct.

Waitrose understands that Partnership behaviours will help them to build strong relationships that will lead to business success. By having loyal relationships with customers and individuals, Waitrose is rewarded with the benefits which will help differ Waitrose from other grocery stores.

Waitrose focuses on long-term and reliable partners that will support the company’s liability. Every partner knows what parts in Waitrose he has. By knowing all the duties, Waitrose Partnership behaviours achieve things that help provide excellent customer service.

Staff Code of Conduct is a law where the rules are indicated how individuals or companies must behave with their employees. It includes social norms that Waitrose must follow day-today. Policies include strong relationships with staff, meet their expectations about salary, working conditions and rights. Waitrose believes that these conditions will improve their brand position as a grocery store and increase their reputation in society.

All Waitrose’s own regulations are connected with people and customers to improve their lives for better side. Purposes of all these standards are protecting employee and staff from negative changes in the world and problems in the market. For example, some regulations make it easier for consumers to return their money if the product is damaged or did not satisfy them. Nowadays, customers are expecting more respectful attitude to them. Summarising, regulations helps Waitrose to create trustful relationship between customers and the company. To meet all the standards of excellent customer service, Waitrose’s staff need to know all the information which tells them what to do and how to raise customer service on more high level.

Failing in following legislation and regulations may have bad consequences for Waitrose.

The most evident consequence is receiving fines for non-comformity to these rules. Fines to the most important legislation such as The Consumer Protection Act 1987 or The Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 could cost to Waitrose thousands of pounds.

Secondly, Waitrose’s managers could be going to prison because of The Health and Safety at Work Act 1974. Imprisonment can be last from six month up to two years. Even, if individuals managed to escape from the punishment, it would still affect to their opportunity to work in retail stores.

And the third and the most damaging factor for Waitrose is loss of reputation. Bad reputation means that customers will start to leave the Waitrose. Not following of The Equality Act 2010 could be the reasons of loss customers. Customers are looking for an equal attitude to all people and if staff will be unfriendly to person with “different” nationality or skin colour, he would become disappointed about Waitrose. Therefore, he might complain about it on social media or in real life and that will change people’s opinion about the Waitrose as a company.

Many UK supermarkets have set their own regulations and legislations to improve their level of customer service, relationships with suppliers and products quality.

Sainsburys has launched their own Sustainability Plan. In this plan, company identified 5 the most important values, which are underpinned by a number of commitments. These values are:

As we can see, Sainsbury’s Sustainability has many different perspectives about how to improve their company performance as grocery store.

All these 5 values have a huge impact on customers. If Sainsburys will follow its Sustainability Plan, their reputation and level of customers service will experience a huge improvement.

Also, Sainsbury’s Sustainability Standards help company to make researches what they can continue to improve Sainsbury’s work as a grocery store. Also, this standard defines if Sainsbury’s meet fey factors such as economic, social or political performances.

Main goal of Sustainability is to support suppliers in developing Sainsbury’s impact on customers and employees.

Tesco has its own Healthier products Sustainability. Tesco was the first grocery store what reduced sugar in own brand drinks and now, company is trying to reduce sugar in other products such as cereal, yogurts, puddings, cakes and biscuits. In the few last years, industry have achieved a 4.6% reduction across these goods.

Tesco’s statement why their set this regulation:

Despite this strong supermarket’s regulation, Waitrose still has a strong competitive advantage among other retail stores.

All Waitrose’s regulations apply to all areas of grocery stores, starting from Animal Welfare and finishing with Waitrose Foundation. All these regulations are increasing Waitrose’s reputation as a grocery store which cares about its farmers, animals, employees and customers.

Legislations and regulations have a huge impact on business. The number of different laws which have been sets by government influenced business on many ways. The UK parliament is very strict about any law violation according to the retail stores industry. To escape from risk of punishment, Waitrose must follow all the laws, especially which are connected with health and safety of employees and customers.

The main goal of grocery stores is proving quality and safe food to customers for a reasonable price. Waitrose need to protect people’s health in relation to food.

The work of Waitrose can be checked by sanitary inspections, police and other structures. If inspectors will find any violations of the legislation or regulations, the company might have serious consequences. In some cases, head of Waitrose may face criminal punishment.

If Waitrose commits violation of standard during the trading, the controller may bring them a fine or write a protocol. If inspection did not fine the company, then they might tell about violation to the court. Aa a result, a judge will give the punishment. The amounts of fines depend on the type of violation. The biggest fines are if Waitrose sells the product without any licence for it or sells unsafe food to customer that might cause health problems.

Also, Waitrose has their own regulations which are connected closely with the customer and their opinion about Waitrose. If the company will stop do these things such as help farmers, providing the fairtrade product, have a bad partnership, etc, Waitrose will lose customer loyalty and they will change Waitrose to other grocery stores with better regulations.

It is not a secret that legislations are more strict than regulations. Legislations have been set by the government and connected with all grocery stores.

The most harmful punishment for a Waitrose is going to prison. This could be caused by harm to human health or life or if Waitrose will receive large revenue which is not connected with product selling. There are a few things that the court can do:

– Give a large fine

– Arrest head of Waitrose

– Close the company

In conclusion, legislation and regulations have a large impact on Waitrose’s brand name. Waitrose must follow every law and standard because breaking could cause many troubles. After the punishment, customers will not trust Waitrose as accompany and go to other stores to buy reliable products and get quality service. This will have a major impact on Waitrose’s revenue.

Final judgement

Quality of customer service is a critical factor in business success. High quality of service or products significantly increase the level of consumer loyalty and affect the level of sales and profitability of Waitrose. Poor service leads to a loss of consumers and the company’s market share.

Waitrose has completely transformed into a grocery store. Waitrose has created its own standards which help company to have reliable relationships with customers and partners. Structure of these regulations connected with customers and their expectations about Waitrose. If business do not pay enough attention about quality of products or services, customer’s need, it may cause the problems with employees, loss of profit and brand name.

As I said before, different legislations and regulations can have a big impact on customer service. Do not following rules and laws might sometimes cause serious consequences for the Waitrose. If Waitrose do not want to lose all its employees and customer loyalty and profitability with them, business must follow all the standards which have been set by the government or by Waitrose itself.

It has no matter, how great Waitrose’s design is or how tasty is the food, if level of customer service does not satisfy and meet customer’s expectation because in this case there is a chance that they will not come back the Waitrose again.

And from other side, if company will follow all the legislations and regulations, this will lead to a great reputation in society and as a result an increase in market share and having a strong competitive advantage among other retail stores industries.

In conclusion, a good company is traditionally considered one where all the staff is united by one task – satisfy the consumer.