Bury Market generated £1.1 million in annual surplus by staying traditional while others added wine bars and craft beer. Now they're building a £33 million Flexi Hall. What happens when you finally follow the playbook everyone else is using?

While Crewe, Altrincham and several other town markets have transformed into food halls, Bury Market has remained the same. 150,000 weekly visitors. 70% of customers have been coming for over a decade. No Instagram moments. Just a traditional market.

But demographic reality has caught up. Their core customer base is ageing, and in autumn 2026 their new Flexi Hall will open to younger crowds.

In this episode, I explore what Bury Market protected while everyone else transformed, the 10-minute queue that built customer loyalty nobody else valued, and the uncomfortable question facing every retail professional: when following the obvious route means losing what made you valuable in the first place.

Key Topics:
- Why Bury Market stayed traditional while competitors modernized
- The friction that creates customer loyalty vs. the friction that kills it
- Coach tourism strategy nobody else wanted
- Demographic reality no amount of loyalty can solve
- What "retailtainment while retaining independent spirit" means

Did anything resonate with you from today's conversation? I'd love to know. Do you love a market too?

Get the full show notes with all frameworks and resources mentioned at https://wheresyourcustomer.com/12

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Found this valuable? Please leave a review, it helps other retail professionals discover these conversations and would honestly mean the world to me

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Are smaller retailers winning the AI race?

While 99% of large UK retailers have AI expertise in-house, 31% of small retailers are already using AI daily. The competitive advantage isn't about resources, it's about friction, proximity, and speed of testing.

I've been learning about AI at quite a pace recently, and it made me wonder: if individuals can move this quickly, what does that mean for smaller retailers?

Having AI expertise isn't the same as using AI day to day. One group has resources and roadmaps. The other has the freedom to test on Tuesday and see results by Wednesday.

Virgin Wines removes wine selection uncertainty by matching sensory attributes to individual preferences.

Abelini, an independent Hatton Garden jeweller, uses AR/AI so customers can see how rings look on their own hands.

ListAid helps charity shop volunteers price donations accurately in under a minute.

Finney's in Aberdeen makes three generations of jewellery expertise accessible through digital tools.

Happy and Glorious in Canterbury uses AI for admin tasks, freeing time for customer work.

The pattern? AI sits right next to decisions - customer decisions and colleague decisions. That proximity matters because when AI is close to the decision, outcomes change quickly.

In larger organisations, AI often lives deeper in infrastructure - optimising systems, forecasting demand. That work matters, but it's further from the moments where customers hesitate or teams feel unsure.

Smaller retailers have fewer layers between problem and solution. They notice issues sooner, test faster, keep what works, drop what doesn't. That ability to connect problem, experiment, and outcome is where the advantage lies.

When you look closely at your customer journey (into the detail of what actually happens) friction points stand out. Those are moments where people hesitate, teams second-guess, or customers disappear. Once you see those moments clearly, AI use cases become obvious.

Your AI plan doesn't need to run the whole business. It needs to support decisions causing friction for customers and colleagues. Tackle things moment by moment - that's your roadmap.

The competitive advantage isn't about AI. It's about noticing where customers hesitate, where staff feel anxious, where you're losing time. It's having the freedom to do something about it quickly.

The difference shows up when technology supports real decisions. When it helps someone choose with confidence. When it removes guesswork from pressured moments. When it gives people time to focus on what matters.

That's when AI has impact. That's when it gives you a competitive advantage.

Get the full show notes with all frameworks and resources mentioned at https://wheresyourcustomer.com/11

Need help with customer journey mapping? Let's chat.

Never miss an episode – Subscribe to Where's Your Customer? on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts

Found this valuable? Please leave a review, it helps other retail professionals discover these conversations and would honestly mean the world to me

Connect with me – Find me on LinkedIn or visit wheresyourcustomer.com for more customer service insights and resources.

Share this with someone who needs it – Please help share this podcast with other retail professionals who might find it useful.

UK retail customer service hit a 14-year low in 2024. But is the problem really about better recovery, or is it about prevention?

In this episode, I share a personal story about three trips to fix a basic mistake, then examine the £7.3 billion monthly cost of preventable service failures across UK retail.

We look at why UK employees spend 20% of their time fixing problems that shouldn't have happened, explore the real sources of service failures (it's not what you think), and examine two retailers who've figured out prevention: Sainsbury's with 5% voluntary turnover, and Timpson with their two-rule approach to customer service.

In this episode:

• Why brilliant service recovery still loses 50-70% of customers
• The turnover quality spiral nobody talks about
• Three patterns for preventing failures: systems design, measuring what matters, and technology that prevents
• How to redirect recovery spending toward prevention
• What Saturday afternoon looks like in prevention mode vs crisis mode

Key insight: When a customer encounters even one service problem, satisfaction drops 20 points. We've got brilliant at recovery, but recovery happens after the damage is done. The retailers seeing sustained improvement aren't getting better at fixing things. They're redesigning systems so things don't break in the first place.

Did anything resonate with you from today's conversation? I'd love to know, particularly where you're seeing preventable service failures in your own organisation.

Get the full show notes with all frameworks and resources mentioned at https://wheresyourcustomer.com/10

Never miss an episode – Subscribe to Where's Your Customer? on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts

Found this valuable? Please leave a review, it helps other retail professionals discover these conversations and would honestly mean the world to me

Connect with me – Find me on LinkedIn or visit WheresYourCustomer.com for more customer service insights and resources.

Share this with someone who needs it – If someone in your network is wrestling with customer service challenges, please share this episode with them

Something shifts when you step back from work, doesn't it?

Last summer, I had my first child, and whilst I knew maternity leave would be transformative personally, I didn't expect it to reshape the customer experience lessons I'd carry forward in my career.

Between feeds and nappies, I found pockets of time to read nine customer experience books. What struck me wasn't just the individual insights, but the patterns emerging between them. I found Customer experience lessons that most of us know but struggle to act on consistently.

Lesson 1: Reactive Customer Experience Is Already Too Late. Most businesses wait for customers to complain before taking action. But those winning customer loyalty build intelligence into operations so they can act before problems become customer problems.

Lesson 2: Culture Beats Strategy Every Time. Your culture determines CX, not your strategy. Employees need authority to solve problems in the moment.

Lesson 3: Customer Understanding Requires Discipline, Not Just Data. Having data isn't the same as understanding customers. Real insight comes from weaving together feedback, personas, and journey mapping.

Lesson 4: Customer Journey Maps Are Worthless Without Action. Beautiful maps become wall art without clear decisions and committed action. Know what your map will change before you create it.

Lesson 5: Excellence Lives in the Basics. Great Customer Experiences aren't built on surprise and delight tactics, they're created through consistency and removing friction from fundamental operations.

Lesson 6: Metrics Follow Experience, Not the Other Way Round. Fix the experience and metrics improve. Chase metrics and you often make experiences worse.

Lesson 7: Customers Decide With Emotion, Then Justify With Logic. Emotional triggers matter more than feature comparisons. Reduce cognitive effort rather than adding functionality.

Lesson 8: Physical Spaces Shape Behaviour. Every design choice influences how customers feel and act. Your environment tells a story, make sure it's the right one.

Lesson 9: CX Is Built in Everyday Moments. Customer loyalty is determined by small interactions: answered phones, kept promises, empowered teams who care.

These customer experience lessons reveal that CX isn't about tactics or technology, it's about people. Understanding customers deeply, empowering teams, and getting basics right consistently.

The nine books behind these customer experience lessons:

1. The New Customer Experience Management - Ivaylo Yorgov
2. The Customer of the Future - Blake Morgan
3. Store Design and Visual Merchandising - Claus Ebster & Marion Garaus
4. Creating a CX That Sings - Jennifer L. Clinehens
5. The Ten Principles Behind Great Customer Experiences - Matt Watkinson
6. Customers Know You Suck - Debbie Levitt
7. Decoded: The Science Behind Why We Buy - Phil Barden
8. Customer Understanding - Annette Franz
9. Moments of Truth - Jan Carlzon

Get the full show notes with all research sources and detailed insights at wheresyourcustomer.com/8

Which of these customer experience lessons resonated most with you? I'd love to know.

Subscribe for more – Don't miss future episodes! Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.

Please leave a review – If you found value in this episode, a quick review helps other retail professionals discover these conversations too.

Connect with me – Find me on LinkedIn or visit whereyourcustomer.com for more customer experience resources and insights.

I don't know about you, but I've always got a job list on top of my day job list. Little things like booking eye tests, picking up paint samples, or nipping to the supermarket because you've run out of Calpol. I love it when I'm on a mission in a shop and everything just works. But then there's the flip side, when you can't find what you want, there's no one around to help, or worse, you finally decide on something only to find it's out of stock.

I needed something from the pharmacy recently, so I nipped out to Asda in my lunch break. Guess what? It was closed for lunch - when people actually need a pharmacy. It got me thinking about how some retailers aren't understanding what's going on in their customers' lives and how they're either supporting their experiences or disrupting them.

My 5-Stage Customer Journey Framework. Most journey mapping starts when customers first interact with your brand. I prefer starting earlier, with the customer's actual need. My framework covers: the need trigger, planning the shop, going shopping, the purchase, and usage.

Running Effective Workshops. The magic happens when you bring the right people together with clear objectives. I love facilitating these workshops; they're creative, observational, and analytical all at the same time.

Essential Mapping Terms. Touchpoints, pain points, moments of truth, and emotional potential. Understanding these four elements helps you create maps that actually drive results.

Common Mistakes to Avoid. I've seen teams make the same mistakes repeatedly. Don't overcomplicate it, don't ignore the data, don't forget post-purchase, and remember you're creating a customer journey map, not a process map.

Quick Wins That Work. You don't need a complete transformation to see results. Small changes like simplified checkouts or clearer signage often create surprisingly big improvements.

The Body Shop noticed mobile traffic growing but sales lagging. Instead of accepting that mobile customers just browse, they mapped the actual mobile experience. What they found was interesting. Customers wanted to buy, but the navigation was too confusing. Once they fixed those pain points, they saw a 28% increase in year-on-year orders.

That's the power of really understanding and improving the points in your customer's experience.

• Start journey maps with customer needs, not brand interactions. This reveals insights traditional lifecycle mapping misses
• Successful workshops need clear objectives, customer-facing team members, real data, and a consistent customer perspective
• You're building layers: actions, thoughts, emotions, touchpoints, pain points, and opportunities
• Common mistakes include overcomplicating, ignoring data, forgetting post-purchase, and slipping into process mapping
• Small changes often deliver surprisingly big improvements in customer satisfaction
• Journey mapping isn't one and done - successful retailers revisit maps regularly

• The Body Shop mobile optimisation case study
• Digital mapping tools: Miro and Lucidchart for remote teams
• Customer journey mapping workshop templates

If you're struggling and want some help creating a customer journey map in your business, I'd love to help you. Visit wheresyourcustomer.com/cjm for more details, and you can book a call with me.

Did anything resonate with you from today's conversation?

Get the full show notes with all the links and resources mentioned at wheresyourcustomer.com/7

Subscribe for more – Don't miss future episodes! Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.

Please leave a review – If you found value in this episode, a quick review would help other retail professionals discover these conversations.

Connect with me – Visit wheresyourcustomer.com for more customer experience resources and tips.

The most customer-focused retail leaders aren't waiting for formal AI training. They're building their own AI literacy to serve customers better, and you can too.

If you've been seeing posts about AI transforming retail, hearing colleagues mention ChatGPT, or watching competitors get smarter with AI, you're not alone. Spending on AI technologies in retail is projected to reach $85 billion by 2032, with 78% of organisations globally now using AI in some form.

Right now, individual professionals are learning faster than their companies are rolling out formal training programs. When your company does start deploying AI more broadly (and they will), you want to be the person who can guide those decisions thoughtfully.

• What AI literacy really means for customer-focused retail leaders (it's not about becoming a tech expert)
• A practical 4-week learning roadmap you can start today
• How to experiment with AI tools safely whilst respecting company guidelines
• Why AI literacy makes you a better customer-focused leader
• Real examples of how retail professionals are using AI to serve customers better

Download ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini and spend 15 minutes daily having general conversations. Get comfortable with how these tools think and respond. Learn basic vocabulary like prompts, hallucinations, and context.

Create hypothetical customer scenarios and test AI responses. Practice with public information only. Try different types of requests to build intuition about what these tools excel at.

Pick one recurring challenge; analysing feedback, meeting prep, or drafting communications for example. Use AI as a thinking partner whilst maintaining human judgment and decision-making.

Start conversations with your team about AI experiments. Share learnings in team meetings. Model responsible experimentation for others to follow.

• AI literacy for retail professionals means understanding what these tools can and can't do, not becoming a tech expert
• You can build AI skills responsibly without formal training or breaking company rules
• The goal is to become a bridge between technology possibilities and customer needs
• Leaders with AI literacy can spot opportunities, ask better questions, and guide change thoughtfully
• Professional AI tools (£20/month) are worth the investment for serious skill-building

• ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini AI tools
• ChatGPT Plus, Claude Pro, and Gemini Advanced (paid versions)
• Stanford AI Index Report on global AI adoption rates
• Forbes' research on generative AI workplace usage

Start with one small experiment this week. Download an AI tool on your phone and spend 10-15 minutes daily getting familiar with it. Don't overthink it, just start building familiarity whilst keeping customers at the centre of everything you learn.

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Tired of staring at customer data that tells you nothing useful?

I've created "10 AI Shortcuts for Understanding Your Customers" specifically for retail professionals who know their data holds answers but don't have time to become data scientists.

Download your free guide at wheresyourcustomer.com/ai-shortcuts and start making sense of your customer insights today.