Why do you think you won on service and availability this week? I think we won for two reasons. The first is that we have worked really hard on ensuring good availability in store. This is particularly important over the Christmas period as we get a lot of Tesco and Sainsbury’s customers who trade up for their festive shop, so we have to make sure we can cater for them. The other thing, I think, would be our levels of customer service, which I believe are very high. 

What impact do you think the Asda price guarantee will have on your store? I don’t believe it will have any negative impact on us whatsoever. We tend to compete with Sainsbury’s and Tesco far more than Asda and don’t ever really draw any customers from there. We already have our own price-match initiative – to compete with Tesco – and that has been going really well. 

How often do you visit your rivals and what do you think you do better than them? I try to visit at least one of our rivals once a week. I believe our main point of difference is the level of customer service we offer at this branch. We have the advantage of being a much smaller store, which means we can focus on our customers more and deliver exceptional service. Our rivals are much larger and their service isn’t always as personal as ours. 

What is the demographic for the area and how do you cater for that in store? We have got a really diverse demographic in this area. This is one of the challenges of this particular branch – to ensure we adequately cater for all groups. For the more wealthy customers we really push things like our Seriously Desserts range, and at the other end of the scale we work really hard on pushing the Waitrose Essentials range, which goes down an absolute storm in this branch. 

Do you have much of a problem with crime in store? As with any supermarket we do have an element of shoplifting and crime in this branch, but we have a great relationship with our local constabulary and we also employ a part-time security guard who also works at our New Malden branch. He is able to spot any known local offenders. 

What is the hardest thing you have had to do recently? That was definitely around the utilisation of resources during the snow as we had deliveries coming through at unexpected times and I had to make sure I had enough staff on hand to deal with them whenever they turned up.  

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