Currys is on an upswing at the moment, with a reportedly “healthy return” on its marketing spend, growth in both of its key markets of the UK & Ireland and the Nordics off the back of a strong Christmas period, and increasing customer satisfaction all bolstering the retailer’s performance.
In a fireside chat, CEO Alex Baldock explained how Currys has managed to turn around its performance in recent years, detailing the “huge” role played by culture in the company’s transformation story.
He expounded on the benefits of Currys’ hybrid working policy for its office staff – considered unusual in an age of return-to-office mandates – and the talent it has enabled the business to retain, as well as the “commercial imperative” behind taking staff development seriously.
Baldock also shared Currys’ success with turning “a periodic and discretionary sale” into a lasting customer relationship by building out its services offering.
Currys scores in the top 10% of companies worldwide for colleague engagement, as Baldock revealed in the company’s interim results.
“We’ve got very low, and still reducing, levels of staff attrition – whether it’s on the shop floor, in the supply chain, or the corporate centre – and our results are improving,” he told Charlotte Hardie, Editor in Chief at Retail Week during the fireside chat.
“We’ve got several years now of improving colleague engagement, customer satisfaction, and financial performance to show for it.
“Most of our colleagues tell us … that they stay for the personal development and also the learning; they stay for the sense of belonging that comes from … a strong sense of collective identity [and being] bound together by common values that they had a say in shaping…” said Baldock, calling culture the “glue” that binds staff together.
“If we hadn’t done all that,” he stated, “there’s no way we would have been able to do what we’ve done” in terms of upping customer satisfaction and financial performance as well as staff wellbeing.
“We take this stuff seriously – not just because we’re lovely people, but because it’s a commercial imperative.”
Baldock said that Currys is “happy to be an outlier” in its approach to hybrid and flexible working, which Hardie remarked is “quite controversial”. In 2022, the company closed its west London head office and signed a deal with WeWork that enabled office staff to work flexibly.
At the time, Baldock stated that the company was “not just paying lip service to hybrid working”, but had “listened to colleagues … and … implemented the changes they wanted to see.”
During the fireside chat, he highlighted that hybrid working isn’t possible for many of Currys’ staff, such as those working in stores or in the supply chain. However, for the portion of Currys’ workforce that can benefit from flexible working, “each team gets to set its own standards.
“…I let different teams find their own rhythm. And everyone is ultimately accountable for the results. We’re quite hot on the performance management side – so it has to work.”
As a result of this approach, said Baldock, “Currys is able to attract and retain talent of a wholly different order of quality than we would be able to do otherwise.
“You have to be alive to the challenges of [hybrid working],” he acknowledged, “and to face into those, as well as embrace the upsides.”
Alongside investing in customer satisfaction and upping colleague retention and engagement, Baldock detailed how Currys has kept customers coming back to the business in a category where it is otherwise difficult to build loyalty.
“We want to help customers all the time – not just a couple of times a year in an infrequently-purchased category,” he said. “Turning a periodic and discretionary sale into a continuing relationship – you do that through services and solutions.”
Currys has built up its credit offering, which now has 2.5 million customers; repair, which now has 12 million customers; trade-in and recycling. While working to give equipment longer life might seem counter-productive as it would prevent customers from replacing items, Baldock emphasised that Currys’ repair and recycling initiatives aren’t altruistic – they’re good business.
“Of course we’re proud of the role that we play in helping people’s pockets through a cost-of-living crisis; of course we’re proud of helping the planet … by giving technology a longer life. But [these areas are] good business. They lean on competitive strengths that we’ve got…
“Once you’ve added in services like trade-in, repair, recycling, as well as the credit – you start to build stickier, more valuable customer relationships as well as doing our bit for the planet.”
Baldock also stated that Currys has started to “claw back” market share from Amazon in the realm of smaller-ticket electrical items, such as electric toothbrushes and hairdryers; and is overhauling its stores now that the company is in a stronger financial position.
“There’s plenty of growth to go for … We’re pretty excited about the opportunities ahead, and we intend to seize them,” he said.