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Differentiating through service
Halfords is seeing a rapidly growing demand for its car-parts fitting service, Wefit and is focused on "customer service" as one of the key elements of its strategy for long-term growth.
Speaking at the Retail Week Conference today, Halfords CEO David Wild told delegates, that retailers must innovate and differentiate to survive. He said that in an era of heavy discounting and web enabled price transparency, competing on price alone wasn't a sustainable strategy for most retailers.
As car and travel products have become more complex, Halfords has moved to fulfil customer demand for more expert advice and product demonstration. This led to the launch of its Wefit services where store staff also fit products like bulbs, wiper blades and Sat Navs - so that customers leave the store with the product installed and working. Halfords also offers free Bike Build and a free 6-week check on all bike purchases.
"Growth in demand for Wefit has been tremendous," said David Wild, "in our last full quarter levels of fitting were up 60% year-on-year. It shows how many customers want advice and help across our range of products. Service is now a key element of our product mix and we are gearing up our training programmes so that we have even more expert store staff available to serve customers."
Halfords entry into the £9 billion car servicing market, through their recent acquisition of Nationwide Autocentres has opened another avenue of growth through service. Research shows that trust and good service are key in influencing a motorists choice of garage.
Nationwide have built their growth strategy around the provision of best-in-class service. Autocentre managers are trained to deliver exemplary customer service and each centre is audited quarterly using the Net Promoter Survey to check customer feedback and their propensity to recommend Nationwide to a friend. Any centres achieving less than a 76% recommendation rate are immediately placed on a management plan to raise service levels.
"We have moved from a period where service was a value add to a point where it is an integral part of the overall product," said Mr Wild. "It is now a key point of differentiation between retailers."
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Halfords Group plc
The Group employs approximately 10,000 staff and sells over 10,000 different product lines, ranging from car parts and cycles through to the latest in-car technology, child seats, roof boxes and outdoor leisure and camping equipment. Halfords' own brands include Bikehut, for cycles and cycling accessories, including the Apollo and Carrera brands and in the premium range exclusive UK distribution rights of Boardman cycles and accessories. In our outdoor leisure range URBAN Escape represents a premium range for camping equipment. Operating from 469 stores, including internationally, 23 stores in Republic of Ireland, six stores in the Czech Republic and one in Poland, and 33 smaller format, compact stores Halfords offers a "wefit" service for car parts, child seats, satellite navigation and in-car entertainment systems, and a "werepair" service for cycles.
Halfords also operate Nationwide Autocentres, the UK's leading independent car servicing and repair operator. Nationwide offer dealership quality service at more affordable prices and have 224 centres in the UK
Sara Leung
Halfords PR Coordinator
Icknield Street Drive
Washford West
Redditch
Worcestershire
B98 0DE
Tel: 01527 513315
Fax: 01527 504780
email sara.leung@halfords.co.uk