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FRED HARRISON Ritchies CEO What has been your greatest lesson to date, navigating through this pandemic? The need to have an open mind and be totally flexible. In early days, there were many moving parts and we needed to make decisions on the run. Ensuring we kept customer and staff safety front of mind was a key priority. With all the challenges you’ve faced, what has been your proudest response? We’ve received plenty of customer feedback via our website and customer emails. Many have been of a positive nature, while some have been negative. Being able to explain the facts to customers and have them understand the issues of concern has been a challenge, although in 90 per cent of cases we’ve been able to turn potentially negative outcomes into positives. Customers appreciate the follow-up and the clarity. There’s been plenty of misinformation in the media, so it’s good to be able to communicate directly with the customer. I’m most proud of our team members who’ve truly stepped up and done all we’ve asked of them. When our stocks were being drained during the peak of the panic buying, our store teams had to deal with a lot of upset customers. Our teams have also had to adapt quickly to the safety and cleaning procedures we’ve added to their duties, all while continuing to deliver exemplary customer service. What extra measures have you needed to implement to provide a safe and highly productive environment for both your staff and your suppliers? Social distancing is obviously a big issue. Keeping staff and customers apart is a challenge. Putting the ‘sneeze screens’ on each register in our stores has made a big difference. We’ve obviously ramped up cleaning and sanitising heavily, which has been reassuring for both customers and staff. The social distancing message is certainly getting through in-store and the general public seem to be trying to adhere to this and be as hygienic as possible. Human behaviour is never easy to navigate. What positives have you experienced from both consumers and suppliers? Many customers have become very upset about what they think we should be doing in-store. Again, through our communication, we’ve been able to turn much of that mindset around. The public are rightly demanding, so communication is paramount. Suppliers have pulled away from the stores somewhat, which we understand. We’re starting to see a number of companies wanting to send their team back into our stores to assist with ranging, relays, filling and merchandising. Where does our industry still need help and what response do you need? There’s been no compass for the coronavirus, and every day presents its own set of challenges. We believe all levels of government have done a solid job in trying to keep the public abreast of developments and updates. People are keen to have life return to normal, but I think it’s fair to say we still have a number of weeks and possibly months of ‘level 3’ activity ahead of us and people’s expectations need to be tempered. How has your community interaction changed over the past few weeks? We’ve introduced a home delivery service for seniors and those with respiratory problems or mobility issues. Rather than delivering a general box of essential products, we’re giving customers the opportunity to email their own order to the appropriate store and have that product picked, packed and delivered. This is providing a good service. We’re also running ‘seniors hour’ between 7am and 8am each day and we’re also assisting a number of hospitals in our areas, by allowing their team members access to the store early of a morning as well. We’ve certainly geared up with extra staff to meet the extra demand for service and constant cleaning. This has been well received by our customers. If you had a message or a call to arms to our entire industry, what would it be? It’s important that we don’t try and score points against our competitors. We’re part of an industry that needs wise heads, and the more we can work together, the better it’ll be. Rather than trying to outscore, or turn marketing tricks against our competitors, we should all try and have a bit of uniformity and work in the best interests of the public. Market share will settle down once we come through the coronavirus. I also believe that you don’t need half-price specials to be successful, and the idea of 50 per cent discounting needs to come to an end. Sure, let’s have aggressive specials, but suppliers and retailers don’t have to give everything away at half price. I hope we’ll see the end of half-price specials within our industry. I don’t believe this is sustainable for the longer term and we need to think of the bigger picture and have a more viable network. OUR RETAILERS “It’s important that we don’t try and score points against our competitors. We’re part of an industry that needs wise heads, and the more we can work together, the better it’ll be.” APR, 2020 RETAIL WORLD 11