Details

Andrew McMillan

Former Head of Customer Service | John Lewis

Who am I

Andrew headed the John Lewis Intelligence Team, with responsibility for customer service and analysis of demographic trends. He believes service tends to reflect internal culture; you can’t teach it and stick it onto an unhappy organisation. Even when cuts need to be made, Andrew argues that changes to the process can often reduce costs while enabling service levels to be maintained, or even improved. The priority is to keep in touch with customers’ expectations.

Andrew McMillan spent over 20 years with John Lewis Partnership, the last eight responsible for leading customer service across the department store division. Now an advisor to both the private and public sectors, he is widely recognised for developing John Lewis’ much-admired sales and service culture - consistently held up as an example of best practice.

Andrew started as a management trainee at Brent Cross. He moved up the ladder to head a department in the flagship Oxford Street store, before switching from the shop floor to the Intelligence Team. They acted as an internal consultancy across all areas of service including strategy, product differentiation, demographics and customer analysis by catchment area.

In presentations Andrew explains that customer service quality should reflect internal culture; you can't just teach it and stick it onto an unhappy organisation. And in a climate where many are making cuts, he argues that creating a distinct, discernable and appealing personality for a business through the employees, by viewing them as an asset rather than a cost, can deliver a degree of long-lasting competitive differentiation few achieve, but many aspire to.