Shownotes
How do you deliver world-class luxury service to millions of annual visitors while preserving exclusivity, personalization, and the magic of in-store retail?
Live from Retail Technology Show 2026 in London, Chris Walton sits down with Mark Blundell, Chief Retail Officer at Harrods, to discuss how one of the world’s most iconic retailers continues to set the standard for customer experience, service, and innovation.
Mark explains how Harrods maintains exceptional standards through customer feedback, leadership presence on the floor, and a relentless commitment to excellence. He also shares why department stores still thrive when built around curation, convenience, and memorable experiences.
Key Topics Covered:
• How Harrods serves millions of visitors while maintaining luxury standards
• Why leadership presence on the shop floor still matters
• Using customer feedback to improve service in real time
• Why department stores still win through curation and experience
• How Harrods approaches personalization for top-tier clients
• Blending human relationships with smart internal systems
• Why Harrods compares itself to hotels and airlines, not retailers
• How Harrods views AI through customer strategy, not hype
• Why the company chooses to be a thoughtful fast follower on AI
• Where AI can improve efficiency behind the scenes
Thank you to Vusion for supporting our coverage from Retail Technology Show 2026.
#RetailTechnologyShow #Harrods #LuxuryRetail #CustomerExperience #RetailInnovation #AI #OmniTalkRetail
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Transcripts
Hello, everyone.
Speaker A:This is Omnitalk Retail.
Speaker A:I'm Chris Walton, and we are coming to you from the Retail Technology show in London in the Fusion podcast studio.
Speaker A:Thank you to the Retail Technology show and to Fusion for making all of our coverage of the conference possible.
Speaker A:Now I'm excited to introduce my next guest.
Speaker A:My next guest is Mark Blundell, the Chief Retail Officer at Harrods.
Speaker A:Mark, welcome to omnitalk.
Speaker A:Thanks for being here.
Speaker B:Thank you for having me, Chris.
Speaker B:Appreciate it.
Speaker A:Yeah, I'm excited.
Speaker A:We were kind of getting into some good banter beforehand about what we had for breakfast this morning, but.
Speaker A:But without further ado, why don't you tell the audience?
Speaker A:Because we're also talking about how your background is very varied.
Speaker A:Yes, you have an interesting background, so I'd love for you to tell our audience about it.
Speaker A:And also, what brings you to RTS to begin with?
Speaker B:Okay, what brings me to RTS?
Speaker B:Well, it's been going for over 10 years, I think.
Speaker B:And what brings me here is they finally got me.
Speaker A:You've already been on stage, right?
Speaker B:I know I have already done it.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:I know.
Speaker B:I tend to stay personally more in the background, but Harry is such an interesting case study for people.
Speaker B:I think that's primarily because most people have been.
Speaker B:And therefore they've had an experience of it, so they can.
Speaker B:Everything you talk about, they're able to visualize.
Speaker B:And so I think that's why it's always of interest at these type of conferences.
Speaker B:But what brought me here is that, well, a long and checkered career in retail, really.
Speaker B:I mean, I did start in banking for Barclays.
Speaker B:My father was in banking, my brother was in banking.
Speaker B:They said, don't ever go into banking.
Speaker B:So I went into banking and it was retail banking for Barclays.
Speaker B:And then I enjoyed that, but.
Speaker B:And I like working for a really top organization in that sphere.
Speaker B:But then I moved and went to Waitrose and John Lewis because I wanted to work for a slightly different organization, a private organization rather than a plc.
Speaker B:And I really wanted to get to frontline retail, back to where my Saturday job used to be.
Speaker B:I used to work in a pipe shop.
Speaker B:Pipe shop, like, you know, a smoking shop.
Speaker B:And that was my Saturday job for four years.
Speaker B:And if my managing director was hearing me now, he'd be disappointed in me saying that was the best job I ever had.
Speaker B:Of course it is.
Speaker A:I didn't know those still existed.
Speaker B:Well, they don't now.
Speaker B:They don't now.
Speaker B:I think with that was my addiction in retailing.
Speaker B:Because what I could see was as a 16 year old, believe it or not, I didn't smoke a pipe.
Speaker B:You needed to know about the product, you need to know about the customer.
Speaker B:I learned my trade there.
Speaker B:But what I also learned is that life moves on, business moves on.
Speaker B:And what I could see with that business quite easily is dying out, smoking, but the owner couldn't.
Speaker B:And so it gave me a bit of a transformational mindset of, okay, how do you keep retailers alive and relevant in the modern age?
Speaker B:So I went to Barclays, looked at that, went into Waitrose, John Lewis as well, and I did a role of head of change in John Lewis and that was interesting.
Speaker B:Keeping with that, how do you stay relevant?
Speaker B:And then I, you know, if you've been in retail for 25, 30 years, the Everest that, you know, the tip of Everest is to go work for Harrods and that, that sort of came calling eight years ago, right?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Usually when I do these interviews I always say, hey, you know, tell me a little bit about the company you work for.
Speaker B:But I think everybody knows, everyone knows,.
Speaker A:Probably been inside it too.
Speaker A:That's interesting.
Speaker A:You're a merchant at heart then.
Speaker A:That's what I take from that.
Speaker A:You know, you can fall in love with any product category.
Speaker B:I can and I like learning it from the shop floor upwards and really understanding the product and the customer.
Speaker B:But also I think same applies to all of those businesses.
Speaker B:If you surround yourself with great people, experts in what they do, you can learn at your own pace whilst you lead those people, lead the march with those individuals.
Speaker B:So I've been blessed with having great teams and picking great teams who work around me.
Speaker B:But yeah, I like learning new things and getting into new industries.
Speaker A:I'm curious, I'm guessing that's one through line, through all those experiences.
Speaker A:Cause you've got financial services, you've got grocery in there, you've got department stores, now you're in Harrods.
Speaker A:Is the team one of the through lines that connects all of those experiences for you or what else can you say?
Speaker B:I think the biggest thing that connects them is in each of those three markets I worked for an organization whose ambition was to be at the very top of their field.
Speaker B:So Barclays wanted to be the top in financial services.
Speaker B:John Lewis, the best department store on the high street, Waitrose, the best food supermarket and then Harrods just wanted to be the best of the best.
Speaker B:And what I enjoyed about being in those environments was good's just never good enough.
Speaker B:So working and that's incredibly motivational, but it stretches you in ways you've never been stretched before because, you know, just making do doesn't cut the mustard.
Speaker B:You have to absolutely be on the top of your game and pushing for the best of the best.
Speaker B:So I think that's the commonality that stretches across those three.
Speaker B:Working for organisations who position themselves as being the best in their field.
Speaker A:So a commitment to excellence, without a doubt.
Speaker A:Okay, so let me put your feet to the fire on that, then.
Speaker A:So, you know, harrods, I think 330 departments, if I'm not mistaken, or some enormous number.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:That's what I got in my research.
Speaker A:But, you know, massive amount of square footage, too.
Speaker A:You've got tourists from some of the wealthiest, you know, some of the wealthiest clientele imaginable coming through that store.
Speaker A:How do you design and monitor the service standards across such a wide swath of categories and customers?
Speaker A:And as you try to commit yourself to that level of excellence?
Speaker B:It's a good question and it's not easy.
Speaker B:We've got 15 million customers a year, so how do you make sure that.
Speaker A:15 Million.
Speaker B:15 Million.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:I mean, 15 is pretty big.
Speaker B:Yeah, 15 would have been.
Speaker B:I'm not sure I could cope with.
Speaker A:50, I think, you know, we can't scale up.
Speaker A:That.
Speaker B:We can't.
Speaker B:That would be tricky to scale up.
Speaker B:But we monitor them in the standard way retailers monitor them, which is through exit surveys, pull surveys, all the standard stuff.
Speaker B:And Listen, we get 600 comments a week from our clients.
Speaker B:And I must say that anyone that doesn't hit the 10 out of 10 mark gets straight put on my phone.
Speaker A:Really?
Speaker B:Yeah, and straight on my phone and my leadership's team's phone so that we can understand what's gone wrong and work with our colleagues to make sure that we don't make the same mistakes again.
Speaker B:So we get immediate insight.
Speaker B:And when we let one of those clients down, funnily enough, when you move further up the pyramid of customers to our ultra high net worth, they won't fill out a survey.
Speaker B:So you've got to spend time with them, you've got to observe them and understand what experience looks like to them to truly know whether you're hitting the mark or not.
Speaker B:So although we get this rich level of insight, nothing ever beats walking onto your shop floor observing your clients, seeing how my team are interacting with those clients and how those clients are responding.
Speaker B:You know, a lot.
Speaker B:You know, we're at a tech show.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So everyone here as a vendor is looking to sell you a really great solution.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And that.
Speaker B:That's Absolutely fine.
Speaker B:And we're part of that and I fully encourage it.
Speaker B:However, nothing beats your own eyes and your 25, 30 years worth of experience of what good looks like.
Speaker B:But equally, nothing is better than speaking to a client, leaning in and listening to what they have to say.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So I'm curious, Mark, so say one of those surveys comes back, Right.
Speaker A:And how do you use that as a teaching moment to help inform how things should be done going forward versus kind of like as a punishment exercise?
Speaker A:What have you found that works in that regard for you?
Speaker B:We'll tend to.
Speaker B:We consistently meet with my leadership team and we will look at.
Speaker B:We'd probably extract two things.
Speaker B:Our worst comment of the week and our best comment of the week.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:Because if you just look at your worst comments, then a, that's pretty demotivational.
Speaker B:Yeah, it's massively so.
Speaker B:We try and unpick what's gone wrong and we will all usually pick one whereby there's been a number of occasions along the way within the customer journey where an error's been made that we should have rectified.
Speaker B:And then we'll go to the relevant area, whether that be a retail area, whether it's in the supply chain, whether it be the online journey, and work with the teams there to give them the insights of what, what could we do better?
Speaker B:So we look at that on a weekly basis at our trade and service meetings.
Speaker B:We also outreach to clients who leave us fantastic comments because a, you feel good, but it's a great way of building advocacy.
Speaker B:Thank you for taking the time to leave the comment.
Speaker B:First and foremost, thanks for sharing your experience.
Speaker B:Is there anything else you want to share?
Speaker B:And often it's listen, next time you're in, let's meet, let's meet.
Speaker B:And I think that's building that longer term connection relationship with the client.
Speaker B:So if we just focused on the bad stuff, which is almost.
Speaker B:That's table stakes.
Speaker B:You've just got to get into that space to make sure that you are recovering a customer experience.
Speaker B:We're not perfect.
Speaker B:We try to be, but we make mistakes.
Speaker B:But we also want to make sure from our really great customers, what more can we do for them?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And it helps you understand where to lean in in terms of what you're doing well as well.
Speaker A:All right, so I got to ask you this question too.
Speaker A:So you know, and Harrods is kind of a one of one in the marketplace.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:It's very unique.
Speaker A:But you know, the department store industry in general, some would say it's an Outdated form of retail or an outdated model.
Speaker A:What would you say to that argument?
Speaker B:Bring them in here.
Speaker B:Who the hell said that I would fight them to the bone?
Speaker B:I wouldn't.
Speaker B:I think there's.
Speaker A:What's the nuance?
Speaker B:The nuance is this.
Speaker B:I think there's some truth in the statement because they're probably quoting a lot of challenging department store retailers in this country.
Speaker B:But, you know, if you go to the US A lot of those retailers, department store retailers, are struggling to make ends meet.
Speaker B:You just need to read the headlines.
Speaker B:Hey, you go and visit Macy's now.
Speaker B:When I was growing up, I visited Macy's.
Speaker B:That was sort of like, you've got to go to Macy's.
Speaker B:I went to Macy's recently.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:It's a big disappointment.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And so it's tough.
Speaker B:And the mistake that I think people make is when you're not curating the right experience for the client.
Speaker B:Curating the right brands, creating, curating the right experience.
Speaker B:If it looks like a patchwork quilt you store, it will come across that way to your customer and they will give up and they will just go to independent boutiques because they make more sense to you.
Speaker B:But if you curate them in a way of, I expect to see this brand next to this brand, I expect to see these hospitality outlets within my environment, then it's got to make sense under the one roof.
Speaker B:And why I'm super proud of what we've done in Harrods is every single one, almost every single one of the brands that we sell have boutiques within a stone's throw of our store.
Speaker B:So you can go to Chanel, you can go to Hermes, you can go to Vuitton, you can eat in some of the restaurants that we have in house within the square mile.
Speaker B:But we still have 15 million clients come through the door every day because we've curated it in a very convenient way for our clients, and we show up really, really well.
Speaker B:That's why I think a, we're successful.
Speaker B:But why I think that the model will last.
Speaker B:It only fails where it becomes this patchwork quilt of nothingness.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:Where you have to stand for something.
Speaker B:Correct.
Speaker A:That's where you see the issues.
Speaker A:Yeah, I appreciate the candor there.
Speaker A:That was really, really great.
Speaker A:So to that end, my next question is, you know, we're at a tech conference.
Speaker A:You kind of alluded to it.
Speaker A:Personalization is probably the most overused buzzword at any tech conference I ever go to.
Speaker A:It drives me crazy.
Speaker A:So how do you think about personalization as a term?
Speaker A:Both From a technology perspective and also reaching your clients in a one to one personalized way through Harrods.
Speaker B:Well, having a deeply personal collection with 50 million customers is tough.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So we've got to be smart.
Speaker B:We've had a rewards loyalty scheme for close to 30 years now.
Speaker B:So we've got a very, very mature level of insight on our customers.
Speaker B:How we then use that to personalize is different.
Speaker B:You know, table stakes in the industry is very much, you know who I am, you know my age, you know where I live and you know my birthday and you know, essentially with those core bits of information you can do, the expectation for the customer is I've given you this information, you're going to do something with it.
Speaker A:It's a good way to think about it.
Speaker B:When we start to move and we're unapologetic about that, we have clients who sit at the top of our pyramid who are super important to us.
Speaker B:It's, it stands to reason they invest a lot in us, so it's important that we invest a lot back and we need to invest in that personalization.
Speaker B:So how do we do that?
Speaker B:Well, they don't just expect us to know their name and where they live.
Speaker B:They expect us to know where they like to go on holiday, which restaurants they like to eat in, how many children they've got, when their children's birthdays are, when they come and visit us.
Speaker B:We need to know how they like their coffee, do they drink alcohol, do they not drink alcohol?
Speaker B:If they drink alcohol, what's their favorite cocktail and they expect that cocktail to be there when they arrive.
Speaker B:We know all of that information on our top customers and we're constantly learning through one on one relationships about what it is that makes a difference to those clients.
Speaker B:We log it, we understand it and then we deliver it.
Speaker B:But we deliver it on a human level, not on a technological level.
Speaker B:So it's backed up actually by technology.
Speaker B:Historically we would capture all of that stuff in a little written black book.
Speaker B:Yeah, right.
Speaker B:That's what I, the old black book in the pocket.
Speaker B:We don't anymore.
Speaker B:We log that on a very clever system.
Speaker B:That's an in house Harrods system, which means that wherever that client has a touch point, the person can access it and knows who that client is and knows what their likes and dislikes are, meaning that that client's experience throughout the whole of Harrods and the touch points is really transparent.
Speaker B:We're able to deliver something really personal and that's not just something they get anywhere.
Speaker A:What I imagine Too part of that is because the clientele can actually interact with you in more ways than they ever could, say 10 or 15 years ago as well.
Speaker B:Our competitor set, particularly in that market, isn't department store businesses.
Speaker B:They are the hotels that the clients stay in, the airlines that they fly in.
Speaker B:All of those different service entities are actually what we seek to mirror in that space.
Speaker B:We don't necessarily go to our core competitor, think what are they doing, what should we be doing?
Speaker B:We actually look at what is the lifestyle of this customer and therefore what are they expecting when they walk through our door.
Speaker B:And that's where we seek to elevate.
Speaker A:Wow.
Speaker A:All right, well, let me get you out of here on this end.
Speaker A:I've kind of been closing up many of the conversations today and I imagine I will for the next two days.
Speaker A:AI, how, if all, do you expect, in the light of everything we've already talked about, how, if at all, do you expect AI to impact the Harrods business and the Harrods customer over the next few years?
Speaker B:I haven't heard AI mentioned.
Speaker A:No, I know.
Speaker B:Well, I think, I think one, first thing I'd say about it is that we have no one in the business with AI in their title.
Speaker B:We don't have an AI strategy.
Speaker B:We have a customer.
Speaker B:We have a customer strategy.
Speaker B:Our focus is on the customer, on the proposition.
Speaker B:However, when it comes to AI, we view it through three lenses, all of which I would say we're in the discovery phase of.
Speaker B:The first is how will it make our business more efficient?
Speaker B:Now that is what every organization who's visiting here today will be looking at.
Speaker B:My kids school should be looking at what will make their school more efficient and how will AI help them.
Speaker B:So that's again fairly standard.
Speaker B:So that's one bucket of activity that we're looking at.
Speaker B:The second we're looking at is how are clients, retail clients, interacting with AI, how are they using it?
Speaker B:And it's integrating into their everyday life in a way that we understand a little bit more about their behavior, things that they like about using it, things that they don't, things that it's being used to enable them.
Speaker B:And then third bucket, most important bucket is.
Speaker B:And then which of those clients are our clients and how are those clients using it and wanting to use it to engage with us.
Speaker B:All three of those buckets are.
Speaker B:I think I just mentioned the Fireside chat I did.
Speaker B:We will never be a leader in that space.
Speaker B:We actively, we'll be a fast follower.
Speaker B:So we will, because we know there's so much noise around AI and there's also some good bets being placed and some probably really bad bets being placed.
Speaker B:We are actively doing discovery on all of those three buckets.
Speaker B:Ready to be in a position that says that this will be the best for our customer strategy once we've really established what will work best for our client base.
Speaker A:Mark, as an operator, how do you actually do that discovery?
Speaker A:So particularly for the second and the third one, the first one, the operations, I kind of understand how you would go about that.
Speaker A:But the second and third one, for those listening at home, the other executives that are listening to this too back in the States, how are you going about trying to understand what it is the clients are doing or not doing with AI it's easier said than done.
Speaker B:It's massively easier said than done.
Speaker B:Much of it is desktop, but we also have many customer panels, so we are able to reach out directly.
Speaker B:We started this conversation talking about everyone's had some experience of Harrods.
Speaker B:Whenever we seek to do client panels, we get sellouts.
Speaker B:Because what we found with our really loyal clients is they want to make our business better because they see it as their business.
Speaker B:So if we can make their shopping experience improved in any way, they want to tell us about that.
Speaker B:So we'll lean into client panels to really understand what it is they're doing.
Speaker B:And we have got a really significant data set as well which informs us of how people are searching, how they're performing, how they're behaving.
Speaker B:So certainly in the first bucket we just look at what's happening in the, we've got call centers, what's happening in the customer service industry, how do we use AI enablement to improve and enhance and create more productivity in that space.
Speaker B:But when it comes to the specific how does customer behave?
Speaker B:It is more nuanced because what they say they do and what they actually do are not necessarily the same thing and what they want.
Speaker B:But let's not beat around the bush.
Speaker B:Customers come to Harrods for a human connection.
Speaker B:They come for a social interaction, frankly, they come for fun.
Speaker B:It's a great place to be.
Speaker B:So as a consequence, AI will always sit in the background of our client experience because it will always be human fronted, but we will definitely lean in to see where it's better enabling our clients and the decisions they're wanting to make.
Speaker A:That was a great answer, man.
Speaker B:Thank you.
Speaker A:Really insightful.
Speaker A:Yeah, man, thanks for your time.
Speaker B:Absolute pleasure.
Speaker B:Chris.
Speaker A:It's a pleasure.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:We're about to do this again.
Speaker A:Maybe next year.
Speaker A:We'll get you fired up behind the microphones again because that was a really great answer.
Speaker A:I love that.
Speaker A:Thanks watching for and very candid too.
Speaker A:I always appreciate the frankness whenever I get a chance to interview folks like yourself.
Speaker A:So much appreciated.
Speaker A:So, Mark Blundell, the chief retail officer at Harrods, thanks for joining us.
Speaker A:On behalf of Mark and myself, to everyone out there, thanks to Fusion and the Retail Technology show for sponsoring our coverage here at the conference.
Speaker A:And as always, be careful out there.