Andrew McMillan specialises in employee engagement, customer experience and the leadership required to create the link between the two. Previously, he spent 28 years working for the John Lewis Partnership. McMillan started his career as a management trainee with the John Lewis Partnership in North London. He quickly moved up... Read more
Andrew McMillan specialises in employee engagement, customer experience and the leadership required to create the link between the two. Previously, he spent 28 years working for the John Lewis Partnership.
McMillan started his career as a management trainee with the John Lewis Partnership in North London. He quickly moved up through the management ranks and led a number of selling teams in different branches, culminating in heading a department in their flagship Oxford Street branch.
From there he moved to the head office to take charge of the department stores’ Intelligence Team. They acted as an internal business consultancy, reporting on competitive strategy, product differentiation and value, catchment area demographics for new branches and customer experience.
In 2000 McMillan was asked to lead on customer experience for the department store division. The role saw him develop John Lewis’s market-leading culture and attitude towards customer experience and sales with the 30,000 customer-facing Partners in 26 John Lewis shops across the UK. That customer-driven culture is something that has now became synonymous with the John Lewis brand. During his tenure John Lewis frequently won awards for customer experience from Which? Verdict and Retail Week and were regularly cited in the media as a leading customer oriented organisation. He was also responsible for the management and resolution of the group’s customer complaints.
McMillan’s aim is always to make individuals and organisations happier and more fulfilled through a sense of collective purpose, so they engender trust, loyalty and advocacy from their customers while becoming more productive and, as a consequence, more profitable. He also looks at the roles of leadership, communication, trust and enjoying work in creating success. In presentations, he explains that great customer experience cannot be taught but reflects a great internal culture.