Mary Portas’ move from BBC to Channel 4 has brought about a change of focus for her show – high street chains and customer service rather than Mary Queen of Shops’ independent retailers and individual shops – and as a result of adverts, pre and post-ad break recaps, each of the four episodes only seems to contain half the content of an hour of her last show. That’s not to say the show was bad, just not as good as what went before.
The scope of Mary’s challenge – taking on the customer service within cheap clothes stores, sofa superstores, mobile phone shops, and estate agents – meant that there was less of a feeling of success at the end of an episode. She took on one or two stores in a specific chain (who basically said yes to the show to get some free publicity and free advice from Mary) and helped change a few minds of the workers within. Admittedly she also changed the POV of the owners of said chains, but she only really scratched the surface of a mammoth customer service issue on Britain’s high streets.
When she did succeed within the individual shops it was always hearting since a lot of the tw*ts working in them – all terrible hair, wide-boy suits and talking bull (sofa sellers, phone sellers and estate agents) – were taught a thing or two by Mary’s customer-focussed approach. The women’s clothes shop assistants weren’t as bad, they were just bored and surly, but Mary’s decision to install trendy dressing room-style changing rooms was a massive success and you could see the shop assistants actually getting enthusiastic about their work.
The show was good yet brief and only chipped away at the top of the ice berg. With any luck, business owners watching will have picked up a few tips. In my case, I marvelled week after week at the outlandish jewellery and snazzy look of Ms. Portas herself. And laughed at the fright wigs and northern accents she affected to do under cover filming. If the shop-sorting-out business dries up she can always move into character-based comedy.
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