We aim to make our customers smile because happy customers stay for longer and spend more, which in turn creates a great trading environment for our retailers and caterers, helping them sustain their business and the thousands of local jobs that they provide.
We want our customers to really love coming to our Centre, to tell their friends and to come back, and it is through our brand that we create the emotional engagement that translates into customer loyalty.
Our brand is about making joyful memories, so that next time our potential customers are thinking about how to spend their time they choose intu. Those memories may come from one great event or a particular moment during their visit, so we do our best to make sure eveyr visit is memorable – with world class customer services, excellent facilities, the best examples of the best brands, and our signature products and services.
One of our measures of customer satisfaction is Tell into, a net promoter score (NPS) system, it is important to us as there is a strong link between high NPS, dwell time and spend. the right type of events, such as our recent and hugely successful Big Bugs tour, have a positive impact on this measure as they drive both engagement and footfall.
Most importantly for me is our customers’ contact with intu staff as tgus always has a very positive impact on NPS. Our teams are encouraged to interact with customers as often as possible during their day to day activities, and when we can generate a smile moment from just doing what we do and being who we are, we knoe we’ve done what we’re truly here to do.
As well as the NPS, Tell intu provides invaluable customer insight which enables us to improve our offer. We recently relaunched our Family Club because mums, dads and carers told us they wanted to have fun with their kids rather than leave them in a club. So we redesigned the club around that shared experience and over 5,000 local children and their families have signed up.
The value of a strong brand is well documented across many industries so, with ‘making customers smile’ being at the heart of our brand, is it working for intu? Since we rebranded in 2013 we have measured not only brand awareness but also efficacy through independent insight consultancy Hall & Partners. Five years on partner Kurt Stuhllemmer, exlains their findings:
“intu has successfully captured a strong sense of momentum with UK consumers in a relatively short space of time. intu ensures that brands are able to deliver to customers’ needs in destinations that they want to visit and that are already being talked about as destinations on the way up.
“This has manifested itself in a consistently strong sense of ‘brand advocacy’ with 60 per cent* of consumers aware of the intu brand saying they would recommend it to a friend. Those that would recommend the brand are over 14 times more likely to ‘go far out of their way to visit’ the centres than those they would not recommend, highlighting the importance of the brand’s successful focus on delivering experiences that delight and drive advocacy.
“This is also helping to drive repeat footfall, with 73 per cent* of intu brand advocates considering cisiting a centre as ‘the only one I would consider shopping at’ or ‘it’s one I would consider shopping at abose most overs’. In contrast, it is just 11 per cent* for non-advocates.”
So that’ll be a yes then!
*Continuous category brand equity study, Hall & Partners. All data quoted represents the full year average Jan-Dec 2018.
