Case Study: How Marks & Spencer Unified Its Customer Experience Across Departments
Client: Marks & Spencer
Industry: Multichannel Retail
Services Delivered: Customer Experience Strategy, Internal Communications, Cultural Change
Driving a Consistent and Human Customer Experience Across Every M&S Department
As one of the UK’s most iconic retailers, Marks & Spencer faced a challenge familiar to many large organisations: how to deliver a consistent, high-impact customer experience across multiple business units, channels, and touchpoints.
While the leadership team had a clear brand purpose, there was a disconnect between internal culture, frontline behaviours, and customer expectations — especially across diverse departments like Lingerie, Baby World, Homeware, General Merchandise, and Beauty.
Matthew Fairweather Studio partnered with M&S to bridge this gap through a bold, organisation-wide customer experience transformation — one that aligned internal communications, frontline culture, and service delivery.
Key Project Objectives
Define a unified customer experience framework across all retail categories
Align internal teams around shared CX values and behaviours
Tailor service principles to the unique needs of each business unit
Improve in-store experience and customer satisfaction scores (CSAT)
Harmonise retail communications across digital and physical channels
What We Delivered
1. A Clear, Actionable Customer Experience Strategy
We helped M&S define a set of experience principles that could be easily understood and applied by teams across the business. This created a shared language of service that turned brand values into frontline behaviours.
2. Tailored Experience Activation Across Key Business Units
Lingerie
Empowered teams to offer emotionally intelligent, discreet support
Simplified the fitting room journey to boost confidence and comfort
Baby World
Focused on new-parent empathy, patience and clarity
Delivered soft-skill training for high-emotion conversations
Homeware
Helped teams provide inspiration without pressure
Unified merchandising and service language across stores and digital
General Merchandise
Reduced in-store friction by aligning service rhythm with customer flow
Streamlined POS communications and wayfinding
Beauty
Introduced consultation rituals that elevated the premium brand experience
Connected product knowledge with emotionally engaging storytelling
3. Internal Communications That Made CX Stick
We developed engaging, practical tools that helped M&S internal teams embed CX thinking at scale:
Experience playbooks for business unit leads
Retail storytelling guides and team huddle formats
Campaigns and videos to bring the CX mission to life across 700+ stores
Business Impact
✅ +11% average increase in in-store service score
✅ +9pt CSAT gain in Baby World and Lingerie
✅ Noticeable uplift in employee focus and engagement with CX
✅ Aligned messaging across in-store and digital retail platforms
✅ 17% increase in positive feedback from internal teams on clarity of CX expectations
Why It Worked
By tailoring a central customer experience strategy to the realities of each department, this project avoided a one-size-fits-all approach. The work succeeded because it spoke to what mattered — to colleagues, to customers, and to the brand’s long-term promise.
This was not just a culture shift — it was a commercial shift grounded in better service, greater consistency, and measurable improvement in how customers experienced the M&S brand.
Interested in Transforming Your Customer Experience?
Matthew Fairweather Studio helps large organisations turn brand values into operational behaviours that drive performance and loyalty. We bring together CX strategy, internal communications, and employee engagement to create experiences customers remember — and teams can actually deliver.
📩 Let’s talk about your customer experience goals: call us on 0117 427 8942