Happy Friday! ‘This week in CX’ brings you the latest roundup of industry news.
This week, we’ve been looking at the latest research impacting employees, and the latest retail updates as we prepare for the Golden Shopping Quarter.
We’re also discussing new research about US consumers’ perception of CX quality is at its lowest point since 2016, and updates to Tesco’s legal battles, as well as the latest updates on the job market.
Key news
- British retailer the John Lewis Partnership reported a 91% reduction in first-half losses and said it was on track to deliver “significantly higher” full-year profit as its turnaround plan gathers pace. Its department store division in particular has had a difficult few years as it battled first the COVID pandemic and then the cost of living crisis. It closed stores and cut jobs.
- A recent Forrester Research report highlights that US consumers’ perception of CX quality has fallen for the third year and sits at its lowest point since the inception of the CX index in 2016. The CX downfall is a significant challenge for C-suite leaders, who must prioritise customer focus and identify areas of improvement. Unfortunately, the recent Forrester Research report underscores that the consumer perception of CX quality has significantly declined, especially regarding effectiveness, ease, and emotional connection.
- “US consumers are having, on average, the worst experiences in a decade,” said Rick Parrish, VP, and research director at Forrester. The report outlines that only 3% of the brands are customer-focused, prioritising consumer needs, desires, and satisfaction at the forefront of all business decisions and actions.
CXM news stories
Here’s the full news stories that CXM have reported on in the past week. Learn all about the latest research impacting employees, and the latest retail updates as we prepare for the Golden Shopping Quarter.
Tesco loses UK legal battle over plans to ‘fire and rehire’ staff on lower pay
Tesco has lost a high-profile “fire and rehire” case in the UK’s supreme court over proposals by the supermarket to let some staff go and re-employ them on lower pay.
The dispute with the shopworkers’ union Usdaw began in 2021 and centred on moves to use firings or the threat of dismissal to remove retention payments awarded years earlier to some workers at distribution centres.
The UK’s highest court ruled that Tesco Stores Ltd could not terminate the employment contracts of staff to stop them receiving the retention payments and then rehire them on new contracts without the top-up.
The case has been closely watched because it raises wider questions about the practice of “fire and rehire” and an employer’s right to terminate a contract by giving notice to the employee and then re-employing them on less generous terms.
Lord Burrows and Lady Simler, justices of the supreme court, said in their ruling: “It is inconceivable that the mutual intention of the parties was that Tesco would retain a unilateral right to terminate the contracts of employees in order to bring retained pay to an end whenever it suited Tesco’s business purposes to do so.”
The judges said it had been up to Tesco in 2007 to negotiate an end date for the entitlement to retained pay, but it had not done this.
Job market cools as pay rises ease
UK wage growth is cooling and job numbers have dipped, according to new Office for National Statistics data, potentially easing pressure on the Bank of England (BoE) to keep interest rates higher for longer. The figures, released on Tuesday, show annual wage growth excluding bonuses slowed to 5.1% between May and July, down from 5.4% previously.
While overall employee numbers are up 0.4% year-on-year to 30.3 million, recent months show slight declines. The employment rate remains steady at 74.8%, with unemployment at 4.1%. Labour economist Julius Probst suggests these signs of a “stagnating” labour market should convince the BoE to cut rates “rather sooner” than later and risk more weakening of the jobs market.
The UK economy unexpectedly flatlined in July for the second month in a row. Economists polled by Reuters had expected growth of 0.2%. GDP still grew 0.5% in the three months to July.