Our customers

By building strong relationships with our customers, we have earned their trust in our reputation for quality, price and service. We want to know what our customers want and we maintain an ongoing, open dialogue with them.

Our service

In 2010/11, our Partners’ dedication to service has been recognised in many customer satisfaction surveys and awards:

• Waitrose won the Which? annual supermarket survey of 12,000 people and received five stars for product quality, customer service, range and availability, and store environment.

• Johnlewis.com was voted one of the top online shops in the latest Which? online survey and was named best high street retail website by Webcredible, a user experience consultancy, in its 2010 usability report.

• John Lewis was named Britain’s favourite retailer in a poll of 6,000 shoppers by retail analysts Verdict.

• At the Institute of Customer Service’s UK Customer Satisfaction Awards 2011, based on a survey of 26,000 people, John Lewis won the ‘People’s Choice’ trophies for Most Trusted Organisation and Most Reliable Organisation, while Waitrose won Most Responsive Organisation and Valued Customer.

Extending our reach

We have seized numerous opportunities to reach more customers:

• During 2010/11, Waitrose opened 20 new shops, nine of which were new convenience shops; these included our first smaller-format convenience shop in London trialling the name ‘Little Waitrose’.

• In early 2011, Waitrose opened five shops in the Channel Islands, the first to be operated outside the UK, and opened its first branch in Bahrain under our licence agreement with Fine Fare Food Market LLC.

• Johnlewis.com saw significant growth in 2010/11 sales (up 38% on the previous year) and we had great success from our ‘at home’ shops.

• As part of our growth strategy to invest in existing shops, John Lewis will launch a new in-store beauty spa concept in its Reading and Cheadle shops in summer 2011.

• John Lewis will be opening a shop adjacent to the Olympic Park in Stratford and two more ‘at home’ shops in 2011, as well as a full-line department store in Birmingham in 2014.

200+ Waitrose Foundation projects running in 2010/11

138% increase in John Lewis’ range of FSC-certified products