1. CLIENT: M&S
PROJECT: Engage: Customer engagement professional of the year
CONTACT: Elliot Lee
DOCUMENT: Award entry
DATE: July 13, 2016
VERSION: V1
What role has the individual in question played in overcoming the
challenges faced by your organisation?
The Customer Sales and Service Centres at M&S comprise multiple contact
centres in the UK and offshore operations – including third-party providers.
In early 2015, our management team – as so often happens in these
environments – had a largely operational focus due to increasing volumes and
an ever present cost challenge. Our approach was frequently process not
customer driven. This was compounded by our complex customer
demographic, multiple contact channels and service departments.
As a result, the experiences our customers received was at times robotic,
disjointed and not dissimilar to the experience they might receive from any
contact centre, provided by any brand.
We knew something had to change, so in early 2015 we appointed Elliot into
the newly-created role of Customer Experience Manager for CSSC. In the short
time he has been in this role he has transformed the way we think about and
communicate with our customers.
He introduced a (deceptively) simple, scalable strategy that has prompted
even the most process-focussed of our colleagues to prioritise customer
experience above all else.
He has backed this approach up with clear aims and targets – and the results
are already apparent in our KPIs and customer feedback.
(194/200)
Please give details of how you (or the nominee) have used your (their)
vision and skills to engage customers and/or employees better. Include
measureable results.

2. Elliot’s vision was to bring about a wholesale shift in the way the CSSC thinks
about and interacts with customers. This hasn’t just been a case of changing
our communications. It’s been about fundamentally changing our culture and
philosophy. This was his process:
Working with the right people
Elliot knew that altering our communications style wouldn’t be enough to
bring about sustained customer experience improvement. So he engaged
internal communication experts and external consultants (Wordtree) to help
shape and deliver his vision.
Creating the framework
Together, they created a universally-relevant framework to help individuals
and teams throughout CSSC put customers first and communicate in a
refreshingly honest way. The power of the framework is its simplicity. It shows
how to make interactions with customers “human, caring and sparkling”. It
moves away from standard contact centre-type communications – bringing
our customer interactions in line with the M&S brand.
Part of business as usual
From the beginning, Elliot set out to create a sustainable culture and
approach. A CSSC-wide programme, Conversations M&S Style, was created,
involving:
- Engagement and training sessions for 600+ colleagues – including
our senior leadership team
- Training internal trainers and “Conversations Champions” in each
team
- Refreshing 1000+ business templates
Elliot also:
- Aligned quality standards, measures and other business initiatives
to “human, caring and sparkling”
- Recruited and now leads a Customer Experience Team to implement
the quality framework
- Encourages teams to share examples of great conversations
- Takes every opportunity to raise the profile of CX – including
influencing L&D materials
Leading by example

3. Elliot always leads from the front. Just one example of this: our website
developed a major glitch this year and he immediately stepped in to create
employee and customer comms in the new style.
Results
NPS has improved by 20 points since Elliot became CEX Manager. We’ve also
seen a 10% upswing in first contact resolution and the highest internal team
satisfaction scores in the business this year. This is just the early days – our
figures are improving all the time.
(338/350)
How have you (or the nominee) been innovative or creative in your
(their) approach to improving Employee/Customer Engagement?
What Elliot has achieved at CSSC in M&S is a fundamental cultural and
communications change. And he knew that to make it work, it wasn’t good
enough to have great ideas.
He knew that while an approach like Conversations M&S Style is innovative in
itself, it was worth nothing if his colleagues didn’t get it or buy into it.
He ensured the project focussed on getting to know the teams and creating
awareness and training formats that would land well and be easy to
remember and put into action.
The results were very, very far from a normal classroom approach. Instead,
we’ve had robots, spaceships, disco lights, SWAT teams and mocked-up café
interiors. Formats have included “Mission Totally Possible”, “Conversational
Coffee Shops”, “Coaching workshops”, and “Focus Groups” - all tailored to the
types of interactions that each team has. The approach was to inspire and
create safe spaces where teams could discuss ideas and challenges as well as
try out new approaches in supportive, informal environments.
Following the launch, Elliot cascaded the programme to five sites, two
outsourced partners and he travelled to India to deliver awareness sessions to
our offshore teams in person.

4. Our teams have loved this approach. It’s been fun and informative while
spreading the message of real change. Without Elliot’s focus, passion, drive
and determination, we simply could not have brought all our colleagues on
this journey.
(231/250)
What business benefits has this person brought to the wider
organisation? Give as many examples as possible.
It’s almost impossible to list the business benefits Elliot has introduced in the
limited word count – but here is an overview. He has;
Introduced Conversations M&S Style.
This has reached into our e-commerce, messaging, employee comms, IVR
telephony prompts and template libraries to improve the experience of our
customers.
Got buy-in from senior leadership and the wider organisation.
He’s used his considerable passion and charisma to involve and inspire our
retail and .com teams, as well as our service directors.
Brought about a change in the mind-set and culture of CSSC.
He has overturned a culture where “the process” dominates and has
empowered our teams, giving them the skills and confidence to build
relationships with customers. We now have consistently high quality
interactions with our customers that truly bring our brand to life.
Brought consistency to the way we manage quality
The Art of Conversation assessments will give us a consistency we’ve never
had before and single view of internal quality no matter where you operate in
the CSSC estate.
And he’s now:
Strengthening our infrastructure
Elliot is starting initiatives including working with our L&D managers and
recruitment teams to make sure we get CEX-focused people on board and
give them the very best start in the business.

5. Capturing customer insight to improve experience
Still in its early days, Elliot is working to feed customer insight about customer
contact centre experience back into the business to improve the service we
provide.
(241/250)
Detail the feedback you (or the nominee) have had from fellow
employees in relation to this award entry.
Elliot’s received widespread backing and support for this nomination –
because of the tremendous impact his role has had on our contact centre
teams.
Praise from CSSC teams
It was absolutely FANTASTIC. Seriously, that was the most fun, dynamic,
informative AND inspiring training session I have EVER had!
I thought it was brilliant. It was short, snappy and engaging. Well done! I’m
looking forward to the other sessions.
He’s our resident communications expert.
Praise from senior leaders
Elliot has been singled out for praise by our Head of Service, Jo Moran and
our Head of Operations, Ricky Wilson – especially in light of his expert
response to an unprecedented IT failure recently.
Great working relationships
Because of the way Elliot has managed these programmes, our business has
formed a real bond and close friendship with Wordtree – who’ve been
extremely impressed with his ability to drive a project of this nature through
an organisation.
All-round positivity
The change in mind-set is palpable. There’s a buzz in our teams and our
colleagues feel happier, more positive and productive. Elliot’s work has
ushered in a spirit where it’s OK to have and share ideas – or to work a little

6. differently to get the best result for our customers. This one quote from a
colleague sums Elliot’s approach up nicely:
Elliot’s tenacious about putting our customers at the heart of everything. He
does it in a way that’s inspirational, passionate and easy to get caught up in.
(241/250)
Finally, please summarise why you think you (or the nominee) should win
this award.
The fact that the CSSC Leadership team nominated Elliot for this award speaks
volumes about the impact he’s made over the last 12 months.
A challenging retail environment has meant that Elliot has often had to rescale
his plans. He’s taken this into his stride – and personally delivered elements of
the Conversations M&S Style programme to save £20k.
The impact this programme has had on our teams cannot be underestimated.
What was initially proposed as a single-site tone of voice project grew to
become a change in culture. He’s changed mind-sets across the whole estate
by displaying a real passion and drive to influence up the chain.
Elliot has been with M&S for more than 15 years. But a truly remarkable part
of this story is that until 12 months ago, he had never had a dedicated
customer experience role.
His knowledge, dedication and love of our brand have combined to create a
powerful customer experience approach – an approach that’s simple and
highly effective.
He’s a genuine, focussed and dedicated individual who is more than worthy of
this nomination.
(179/200)