Enabling cultural transformation | Enabling Argos to compete in a digital age
What the client wanted
The Argos objective was to enable a cultural transformation across the entire business. The transformation would enable Argos to compete in a digital age, retaining old customers and attracting new ones. A vital part of their strategy was to engage the hearts and minds of their employees and in order to achieve this a ‘Transformation Programme’ and a ‘Roadshow’ were created.
The focus of these two programmes was to engage store managers, duty managers, supervisors and colleagues in the change occurring within the business, and to support them, creating a workforce which was engaged and ‘bought in’ to the transformation process. The programme needed to prepare colleagues to be change ready for the transformation and for the many changes that were to be landed within the stores.
What we did
Impromptu’s role in the execution of these two programmes was to support the learning and development consultancy Lane4, through our expertise in role-play delivery and facilitation. We worked closely with Lane4 and the client to create robust, believable and realistic scenarios around customer service, colleague/customer engagement, influencing, challenging customers and selling.
Delegates were able to put into practice the new skill sets acquired, in a safe environment; giving and receiving feedback from each other and from the Impromptu role player/facilitator. Delegates were put into their ‘stretch’ zone in terms of product knowledge, customer service and their own emotions when dealing with customers, enabling them to further embed the new skills learned over the course of the programme.
The outcomes
The two programmes have been a huge success for Argos, Lane4 and Impromptu. The learning outcomes for the delegates have been:
- A deeper understanding of the transformation happening within the business
- A better understanding of their role within the transformation process
- Engagement with the transformation
- Developing the skills needed to engage and build trust with a customer in order to achieve a positive outcome
- To be able to handle difficult conversations more effectively
- Developing essential skills in order to give a great customer experience
Lane4’s view on Impromptu’s role
“Impromptu were able to provide high quality, real life scenarios for each of the delegates that pushed them out of their comfort zone. This enabled the delegates to further learn and embed the desired skills and behaviours Argos wanted to successfully land their Transformation.”
“The team not only helped develop scenarios which would replicate as true to Argos store life as possible, but each of them really understood what Argos were trying to achieve, furthered their own understanding of the client’s world to draw on within the role play and demonstrated a real enthusiasm and passion for creating an impact and shift for the individuals they worked with as well as the organization as a whole.”
“Impromptu’s role was really to provide the opportunity for each delegate to practice new skills with the safety of a ‘pause button’ to stop, think, compose, explore, learn and then implement their learning into new ways of working.”
“There was a real sense of partnership between Lane4 and Impromptu to deliver high quality, impactful development to each and every delegate through continuous conversations on how the sessions were going but also how they could be further improved. This gave huge amounts of trust in knowing that great work was being delivered which was further supported by the outstanding feedback received from the delegates and client.”
Fiona McPhee, Senior Consultant, Lane4