Andrew McMillan

Andrew started his career as a management trainee with the John Lewis Partnership at Brent Cross, quickly moving up through the management ranks before moving to head office to take charge of the department stores’ customer-centric Intelligence Team.

In 2000 Andrew was asked to lead on customer service for the department store division. The role saw him develop JLP’s market-leading culture and attitude towards customer service and sales with the 20,000 customer-facing Partners in 26 John Lewis shops across the UK. That customer-driven culture is something that has now become synonymous with the John Lewis brand and, during his tenure, John Lewis won awards for customer service from Which?, Verdict and Retail Week and were frequently cited in the media as a leading customer-oriented organisation.

While at John Lewis, Andrew McMillan advised many other non-competing organisations on their customer service strategy and became recognised as an expert in the field. Andrew has spoken on the subject at conferences worldwide and has had many articles published in specialist publications and the national press. Since leaving John Lewis, in addition to retail and finance, much of Andrew’s work has been in the public sector and he has helped a number of local authorities develop their strategy to deliver a distinct and differentiated customer experience.

Andrew’s aim is 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 helps organisations join up their own internal dots to create their unique link between employee engagement and consistently great customer experience.