B = f (I E)

"If you wonder what getting and keeping the right employees has to do with getting and keeping the right customers, the answer is everything."　 Fred Reichheld, The Loyalty Effect

If ever there was a great example of this, it was surely on last night's (19 January) Channel 4 episode of Mary Portas's Secret Shopper programme. The fast fashion outlet Pilot had probably taken on the right employees but wasn't setting the right environment to keep them that way! The demotivated, unenthused, uninterested staff that the programme portrayed showed that clearly. And 65% of the Pilot customers said they were unhappy about the level of service in Pilot. How many of those customers would Pilot keep, I wonder?

B = f (I E) - Behaviour is a Function of the Individual and the Environment. The Pilot management had set a product-led culture and a product-led environment. And the staff behaved accordingly. We are what we are and you can't necessarily or easily change the core characteristics of an individual but boy can you do a lot to change the environment. See what happened when Portas took the staff into a buzzy, exciting, fun, energy-laden business to serve customers. Their behaviour changed instantly!

Fred Reicheld got it right and Portas gave us a great example last night!