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Running a flagship London store might be the pinnacle of your career, but as Sam Pelling admits, the challenges of an affluent customer base require a keen focus as well as an engaging manner. Luckily she has both in bucketfuls, which helped to ease her arrival at the Cromwell Road store in Kensington three months ago.
However, with her international customer base wanting everything from obscure peanut butter brands to high quality ready meals, Sam says she wouldn't be able to cope without her experienced staff.
"I am incredibly fortunate here. I have a fantastic group of staff who understand that the customer demographic is demanding".
Fast-moving motorbike fanatic Sam has moved stores four times in 18 months, and is fully prepared when it comes to what she needs from her staff and what she needs to give. With the fiercely proud Cromwell Road colleagues to win over, this was essential.
"When you start in a new store people can be very apprehensive. It's about ensuring you spend your first couple of weeks really mucking in with colleagues - finding out who they are." She is zealous about the need to familiarise herself quickly: "I pride myself on knowing everyone's name and knowing something about them, so I can have a conversation with them."
As well as putting out 'table talkers' introducing herself, and soliciting feedback at monthly briefings and huddles, Sam also makes sure to work a night shift within her first couple of weeks. "I ask the night shift manager which night he has most colleagues in, and that goes down really well." This being a 24-hour trading store, the night shift is key to having full shelves 24 hours a day.
The store is performing strongly, holding off the challenge of Whole Foods Market opening in nearby Kensington High Street last year. In fact, Sam says, "we haven't been affected in any shape or form".
She adds: "they are playing hard with money off campaigns, but we're comfortable with where we are and what we're doing."
Sam's customers range from ladies who lunch to diplomats staying at the Marriott Hotel opposite, to tourists visiting the many attractions nearby, and are as likely to be Iranian speakers as English natives. They have one thing in common - they are chiefly in the affluent category. While this allows her to focus on exciting premium lines, it also brings its own challenges. These disposable income-rich customers have high expectations from their local store, she says.
Some customers, such as certain football players from the nearby Fulham football ground, can be prima donnas if they don't quickly get what they want, she adds.
However this is a rarity, as Sam and her team work hard to ensure her customers can find the brands they are accustomed to finding elsewhere, be it in Whole Foods or in their own home countries. Sam says her French and American customers can also be demanding. The store has four feet of peanut butter, second only to Whole Foods' six.
The store may not be the highest trading in the group overall, but it is the London flagship, and as such Sam has the chance to trial big launches such as designer Anya Hindmarsh's I'm Not a Plastic Bag, which was so sought after it subsequently sold ebay for £200. "We had to hand out raffle tickets to the queue outside."
She says that the staff are immensely proud of their store, to the point of being protective of it. Turnover is low, and Sainsbury's Talkback satisfaction surveys have gained some of the best ratings in the group.
Although there are still only three female store managers in the London area, Sam says gender isn't an issue for her: "I feel I have been given every opportunity within the company. I've had some great sponsors who helped when I needed it and pushed me when I needed to be pushed".
She has had a variety of roles from store management to head office since moving to Sainsbury from Safeway in 1993. She has fond memories of the challenging environment of her previous store, the 80,000 sq ft monster Sainsbury's at Sydenham, a far cry from the "lovely" customers and staff at Cromwell Road.
She took the Sydenham store on after taking a two-year sabbatical running a restaurant. When Sainsbury's recovery programme was starting in 2004, the regional manager called her and said they "wanted people like me back in the business". She was interested, but wanted to make sure the challenge was enough for her. "I said I wanted the learning curve to be straight up. He grinned at me and said 'I've got just the thing'."
The store was a great character-forming experience, Sam says, as everything was writ large. "I drove in each day, looked at this aircraft hangar, and said 'are you going to get the better of me today or am I going to get better of you?' When things went wrong they went really wrong, it wasn't just running out of butter, it would be people protesting, wearing cow suits."
Sam says that despite knowing her protocol, she is a "risk-taker". She likes to do things differently. She once painted half of a canteen red and half green, to demonstrate performance measurement to staff at Putney. "I got colleagues to stick performance measures in whichever section they thought they belonged, and move them accordingly as performance improved". After initial scepticism, staff warmed to the idea, she says.
Despite being happy at Cromwell Road, Sam's ambition is to become a regional manager. She would like to be involved with coaching monster stores like Sydenham. Having previously spent a period working over several south east London stores coaching on customer service, this 33-year old has ample experience to match her ambition.n
30 seconds...
Age: 33
Married: to the job, but I have three cats too. No children. I do love the job, but maybe the desire to have children will catch me up at some stage.
Hobbies: I ride a Honda RVF 400 motorbike, but not when it's raining. It's great - it corners like its on rails, but it's only occasionally ridden to work. Quite a few Sainsbury's managers ride bikes and we occasionally go out to Box Hill.
I am also studying retail marketing in my spare time, sponsored by Sainsbury's.
I really enjoy being a foodie, but I much prefer a gastropub to a posh restaurant with waiters in bow ties!
Sainsbury's
Cromwell Road
Age: 26 years
Size: 41,000 sq ft
Number of staff: 360
Competition Tesco Metro, Waitrose at Gloucester Road station, 24-hour Tesco 5-minute drive away at Earl's Court, Whole Foods Market is a 10-minute walk away
It all comes back to my colleagues. The thing I get most feedback on is that my customers come back here because of my colleagues. Service is the hardest point of differentiation to copy. If we drop our bananas by 10p, Tesco can do that too. But in the arena of customer service, like our Make the Difference days, our competitors find it very difficult to compete.
Has the number of customer complaints about the price of goods increased recently?
