The John Lewis Partnership has restructured its customer leadership team as it gears up for the relaunch of the Waitrose and John Lewis loyalty schemes.
As part of the shake-up, overall responsibility for loyalty at Waitrose will pass from current pan-partnership head of loyalty Emily Wells to a new, as yet unfilled position of head of loyalty for Waitrose.
Wells, who joined the business in June last year, will now take sole responsibility for loyalty at John Lewis as its new head of loyalty reporting into John Lewis customer director Charlotte Lock.
Waitrose is currently recruiting for the new head of loyalty role, which will be reporting into customer director Nathan Ansell.
The Grocer understands that Rachel Wigmore, currently head of pan-partnership customer planning, will now also take responsibility for shared pan-partnership loyalty capability.
The restructure comes ahead of the proposed launch of a new pan-partnership loyalty scheme, replacing the current separate MyWaitrose and MyJohnLewis.
JLP had originally pencilled in for the scheme to launch in 2024, but The Grocer understands the launch date has been delayed, due to initial back-end infrastructure work taking longer than anticipated.
In its half-year results last month, JLP revealed it had launched its new central loyalty hub. The portal enables customers to access both Waitrose and John Lewis vouchers and benefits in one place. Around 1.2 million customers currently have access, with access being rolled out to more across the rest of the year.
Waitrose is also trialling customer response to the reintroduction of new disposable paper cups in stores, as part of the newly envisaged offer. It rolled out improvements to the level of personalisation of offers in October 2023, following the integration of a new five-year partnership with Dunnhumby and Eagle Eye.
“We’ve made great progress on our loyalty transformation across 2024 including the joint loyalty hub, the transformation of personalised offers, and setting the right system foundations to enable us to accelerate into the next phase of the plan,” said Wells.
“As we move onto the next phase of the loyalty transformation, I look forward to working closely with Rachel and the new head of loyalty for Waitrose to continue to deliver the plan for loyalty across the partnership.”
Read more: Waitrose’s Nathan Ansell on pushing loyalty and value for money
It’s the latest in a series of restructures across both Waitrose and John Lewis over the past year, as part of JLP’s turnaround plan under CEO Nish Kankiwala, and new chairman Jason Tarry.
In July, The Grocer revealed Waitrose had restructured teams at its store support centre, to create a new service and standards team. Some buying functions have also been rejigged, to create a new “added value team” under head of category trading Rachel Dowsett.
They follow a series of job cuts across Waitrose stores and supply chain, following the a shake-up of store hours as part of its ‘Simpler Shops’ efficiency programme, and the closure of Waitrose’s fulfilment centre in Enfield.
In January The Guardian reported that the partnership was preparing to shed as many as 11,000 roles over the next five years as part of the cost-cutting measures. JLP has confirmed that job cuts are planned but has not confirmed a number. It said most of the roles would go through “natural attrition”.
No comments yet