John Lewis Case Study

John Lewis and its sister company Waitrose have once again chosen Lancashire based Scancapture Ltd to process and report on their annual Partner Survey for 2009.

Waitrose and John Lewis have taken the top two spots in the Which? annual retailers' survey for the fourth year running. Both divisions topped seven out of nine categories polled. As well as standing out in delivering a fantastic customer experience, the Partnership is determined to continue to be an employer of distinction and this years Partner Survey will involve 230 branches and 69,000 Partners being surveyed in just 8 weeks.

In 2008, the Partner Survey achieved a remarkable response rate of 93%, due in no small part to Partners' confidence in the anonymity of the survey process.

The paper based survey is made up of 33 questions and gives the option to add hand written comments. Forms are either posted in sealed ballot boxes in each branch or posted direct to Scancapture, where the comments are typed up and the forms scanned. At no point does anyone from John Lewis see individual forms, ensuring that Partners have the confidence to be completely honest.

As a result, 62,506 Partners filled in their survey form and over 20,000 of them added a comment. These comments totaled over a million words, all of which helped to paint a vivid picture of both where John Lewis are succeeding and where they need to focus in the future to continue to make the Partnership an enjoyable place to work and a business to be proud of.

In order to break the results into meaningful chunks John Lewis used over 200 branch numbers and over 800 survey codes. Scancapture produced more than 1200 reports, returning the information just 5 days after receiving the completed forms.

These reports compare the latest results to historical data dating back to 2003.

Every deadline was hit and Scancaptures determination to deliver accurate, reliable data was evident throughout. Constant communication proved the key to a successful survey as anything unclear was double-checked and nothing was taken as read - pushing John Lewis to think carefully about what they wanted to achieve.

The Technology; Combining Accuracy and Speed
Scancapture use a combination of high speed document scanners with optical doubles detection to prevent any double feeds and sophisticated intelligent character recognition (ICR) software to automatically "read" the tick boxes, numbers and letters written on the questionnaire. Any questionable or incorrectly completed papers are manually checked on screen by an operator and the open ended comments are keyed from the papers. As a large part of this project is automated by using technology, the whole process takes around one tenth of the time it would take for a manual operator to key the data into a computer database.

What Our Client Says About Us
Director of Personnel at John Lewis, Andy Street says Scancapture have been involved in our paper based Partner Survey since it's inception in 2003 and the service we've received over the last five years has been outstanding.

The survey process has been constantly refined - while we surveyed 20 branches a month for 10 months of the year when we began, in 2008 over 220 branches (and 67000 Partners) were surveyed in just 11 weeks.

The complexity of this task requires attention to detail, reliability, flexibility and a 'can do' attitude - all of which Scancapture delivers at a fair price.

Notes to editors
Which Survey? - In October 2008, Which? asked 14,036 members of its online panel to rate their satisfaction with and likelihood to recommend the shops they use regularly. Respondents also rated stores on around 20 factors relating to shopping environment and staff, products, and price. Waitrose finished top of the Which? survey in 2006 and 2008, and was second behind John Lewis in 2007. The John Lewis Partnership - The John Lewis Partnership operates 27 department stores across the UK, johnlewis.com, 198 Waitrose supermarkets and Greenbee.com, a direct services company. The business has an annual turnover of over 6.8bn. It is the UK's largest example of worker co-ownership where all 69,000 staff are Partners in the business.

Waitrose - Waitrose, named 'Britain's best high street retailer' in the Which? awards 2008 combines the convenience of a supermarket with the expertise and service of a specialist shop. It offers fresh and frozen foods, wines and groceries as well as delicatessen, cheese, fresh fish, meat, patisserie and hot-food counters. Waitrose is dedicated to offering quality food that has been responsibly sourced combined with high standards of customer service. (www.waitrose.com)

John Lewis - John Lewis typically stocks more than 350,000 separate lines. The website stocks more than 40,000 lines focused on the best of home and giftware, electrical items including online exclusives and fashion brands. johnlewis.com is consistently ranked one of the top online shopping destinations in the UK. (www.johnlewis.com)