29 March 2024, 02:09
By Furniture News Jul 29, 2019

Customer first, says Kate Hardcastle

Times are changing. The high street’s in meltdown, the disruptors are making all the noise, and no-one seems to know what the kids want these days. Given the scale of these challenges, how can a business reconnect with their audience? Maybe it’s time to call in The Customer Whisperer, writes Paul Farley …

“When I started working in the media, I was told I needed a special title to stand out,” reveals Kate Hardcastle MBE, “and The Customer Whisperer was born.”

It may not be as grandiose a moniker as Queen of Shops, but – similarities to a certain dog trainer aside – it’s an apt description of what award-winning consultant, industry commentator and TV presenter Kate does on behalf of her business, Insight with Passion.

“The customer’s the thread that ties my work together,” she explains. “They’re at the centre of everything I do.”

This epiphany struck Kate in 2004, upon seeing the response to My First Bed, a children’s bed concept she created for Silentnight.

“We set out to create the perfect way to transition a child from cradle to bed,” she recalls. “Parents were moving their children straight into small divans, and nothing had been done to understand how big an opportunity this could be. We brought in this amazing dream team of paediatricians, parents and focus groups, and introduced different techniques to the factory. 

“The result was like a Lego set. It had 2352 design options, from fuzzy felt covers to secret pockets. Most importantly, the concept got children excited about their new bed, and that’s what we wanted.”

The marketing campaign attracted acclaim from the furniture industry – and beyond, as Kate took the stage at The Marketing Society Awards, in a room full of brand heavyweights including Unilever, Pepsi, and Procter & Gamble.

“It was unheard of – here was someone from the furniture industry winning best brand, best internal communications, and going on to be rated a Superbrand,” says Kate, who would go on to take the society’s Marketer of the Year title for her work with Silentnight.  

“On that stage, in front of around 2500 businesspeople, all the doors opened for me,” says Kate, whose drive to put the customer first throughout the project was joyously vindicated.

“As a team, we realised we could do so much more if we put heart into the product, and stop treating it as a commodity. A piece of furniture is not just wood and fabric. It’s what moves in with a family, and becomes a significant part of their life. When you start recognising that, and stop seeing it as a SKU, it becomes a very different entity.”

My First Bed was the culmination of four years working at Silentnight, in which Kate also overhauled the brand’s familiar mascots, transforming the pairing of animatronic hippo and “real-life duck” into a cartoon duo animated by Warner Brothers for a prime-time ad campaign. 

“A piece of furniture is not just wood and fabric. When you start recognising that, and stop seeing it as a SKU, it becomes a very different entity”

Her input played a part in a turnaround which saw Silentnight go from being a £40m loss-making organisation to one of the industry’s highest achievers. 

“The potential for success was already there in 2000,” explains Kate, “and we just opened the door and went our own way. We weren’t going to let any perceived limitations of being from the furniture industry hold us back!” 

In 2004, Kate left to join Halo, before going on launch her own consultancy business, Insight with Passion, in 2009. Among her early clients were Willis & Gambier, Frank Hudson and BBD – but today her client portfolio extends far beyond the furniture industry, comprising everything from small businesses to FTSE100 brands.

Older, wiser, and a mother of three, Kate shows little sign of slowing down. Alongside myriad ambassadorial and charitable designations, she travels regularly, her diary busy with seminars, presentations and meetings. On top of all that, she sings in a semi-professional band, For Funk Sake.

When we speak, Kate is about to board a plane to the US. “I think I’m getting too old for this,” she laughs. “I fly so much. I visit Australia alone six or seven times a year –it takes it out of you.”

As a go-to media commentator for all things retail, Kate’s domestic diary is no less colourful. 

“It can start with an early news interview for Wake Up To Money, or the Today programme, before heading out for an ITV appearance at 7.30. It’s tiring – but I love it, and hopefully I’ll still be doing it in 20 years’ time!”

Merely juggling a professional career and a young family is enough to exhaust most people, I venture, and Kate admits that she hasn’t always managed to strike a healthy balance.

“When I was in my twenties I’d work seven days a week, 17 hours a day. The amount of friends’ weddings, holidays and family gatherings I missed because I was hungry for success … I’m not proud of that.”

These workaholic tendencies were not merely a symptom of Kate’s desire to get ahead, but of her desire to prove her worth within an overwhelmingly male-dominated industry. Since, she’s gone on to champion various women’s causes, and been held up by feminists for her achievements. 

“I’ve been invited to talk all over the world about women in boardrooms and my own journey,” says Kate.

She admits that being such a driven young woman rubbed some people up the wrong way, yet stands by her outspoken younger self. “It was a very hard industry as a young female,” she explains. “I faced a lot of criticism for my approaches. I remember at one point someone describing my work by saying ‘she does all the fluffy flowery stuff’, and I was fuming – good marketing is crucial, and I proved that by delivering big numbers.

“Generally, to be taken seriously and properly acknowledged, I had to work much more than I should’ve done – the pressure to achieve more was always there.”

Kate spent 13 years in the furniture industry, and has since discovered that it’s by no means the most patriarchal sector out there. 

“There are other industries that are the same, and some that are much worse,” she laments. “In FMCG and retail, the numbers indicate that there’s a permafrost layer between the women on the shop floor and top management. There’s still a long way to go.”

“There’s a permafrost layer between the women on the shop floor and top management. There’s still a long way to go”

Yet she feels the struggle is far from one-sided. Kate has turned down opportunities to speak when the agenda felt a little too keen to “beat up” men. She suggests that, if anything, women should be helping each other out more often, rather than seeing men as the enemy. 

Indeed, Kate states that the closest she ever had to a mentor was Neal Mernock, then CEO of Silentnight. “Without his guidance and support, I wouldn’t be where I am today,” she says. 

It’s clear that her time at Silentnight was formative. Even before the awards began rolling in, Kate was developing a breadth of perspective which would have been off limits to most professionals.

“From the start, I was involved in much more than marketing,” she explains, “and had a great commercial grounding. And I needed it. Convincing Argos to take on a bed concept with 2352 options was not an easy conversation!”

Her remit at aspirational interiors brand, Halo, was equally broad. “One day I’d be in Thailand buying silk, the next creating branding in the office, then styling furniture concepts, and even coding the website,” she reveals. 

If Silentnight lit the fires of passion, Halo lent Kate’s approach the insight. 

“I was a real insider at Halo,” she says. “I lived and breathed it, and saw so much, in so many different locations. I was the first Caucasian woman some of our Chinese factory workers had ever seen!”

Kate sees the furniture industry’s relatively informal take on job roles as a real strength, and points to the disconnected nature of many larger operations in other sectors.

She reflects: “I accidentally fell into having more than one career before it became trendy. I’ve had to be so multifaceted.

“It helped that, early on, I often worked in teams where we were all well versed in the whole mix. There was a lot of talent in the industry – lots of people fulfilling multiple roles without truly realising it. I think that’s so much more powerful than having all your employees fixated on their position alone.”

As such a champion of diversity, it’s unsurprising that Kate’s CV makes for interesting reading. Her training ranges from the global INSEAD Business School to the Disney Institute. She’s the recipient of 27 national and international business awards, and was honoured with an MBE last year for her services to business and entrepreneurship. 

She’s also the patron and founder of numerous charities, and a regular contributor to the daily newspapers, radio and TV. On the box, her presenting credits include: Rip Off Britain; Tonight, for which Kate has explored topics including online retail, Christmas cons and the end of the high street; and Eat, Shop, Save, a third season of which airs this August.

“I do a lot of current affairs programmes,” she tells me, “but it’s not just about retail. I’m usually seen as the money lady. Take Eat, Shop, Save, which involves three experts – a chef, personal trainer, and finance specialist (that’s me!) – going into people’s homes and changing their lives. It’s incredibly rewarding.”

Kate says that the growing popularity of shows like Eat, Shop, Save demonstrates that people in general are becoming more aware about what they spend, and where, and are playing a more active role in their purchasing decisions. The customer is king (or queen), and is only likely to become even more influential.

Many of the failures in today’s businesses can be put down to a failure to appreciate and respond to this shift in power – and the signs were always there, says Kate.

“This week, I’ve been quizzed several times on Boots’ potential closures. With the retail landscape fracturing around us, it makes you think about what might have been had the people at the top paid more attention to where things were going at the turn of century. I think there was enough notice for what was happening – a lot of the conversations were happening, but the investment didn’t seem to follow.

“The bed disruptors are everywhere right now, but at Silentnight, we were looking at how to make rolled-up mattresses work in 2001. It just didn’t go anywhere at the time. Yet I always said the consumer would be more pivotal in how they buy – it couldn’t carry on that way.”

Kate admits that hindsight is a wonderful thing – but she was certainly ahead of her time when she helped launch Halo’s online operation a few years later.

“I was keen to explore digital from the year 2000, a full advocate and believer – but for such a long time, the Internet was just laughed out of the conversation. Then I had the chance to help launch Halo Living, the company’s B2C operation, and it became one of the first online home accessories companies. Selling larger items of furniture online was always going to be a difficult task, so it made sense to lead with the home accessories.”

Kate has never stopped looking forward. In an echo of her early days at Silentnight, she currently spends much of her time focused on the demands of younger buyers, from Millennials, down to Generation Z – and further.

“Some businesses will group these audiences together, but they’re so different,” says Kate, who urges businesses to pay heed to tomorrow’s customer as well as today’s.

“Generation Alpha – anyone born between 2011 and 2025 – has been surrounded by social media and technology since birth. The buying power they’ll have is huge. 

“Generation Alpha has been surrounded by social media and technology since birth. The buying power they’ll have is huge”

“In fact, they’re already dictating our purchases. The depth of knowledge may not be there, but children are so much more aware these days, and they’ll almost certainly have an opinion about what their parents are buying. Does that new car have Bluetooth so they can sit in the back and override the audio with their own device to play Baby Shark? Previously they didn’t have as much of a say in these matters, but today brands take every opportunity to reach them, and it shows.”

It’s not just the distinctions between age groups that are blurring. Geographically, Kate is finding that online selling and social media have opened the doors to a global consumer that, continent to continent, is driven by similar desires. “There’s more and more commonality about consumers, we’re very joined up these days,” she says. 

But, crucially, this doesn’t mean a future in which one size fits all. “You can’t overlook the fact that regional and cultural differences still matter,” explains Kate. “Take Australia. An Australian consumer can import John Lewis products from the UK for a relatively small charge, so there’s little barrier there – but there’s so much more to the market. 

“In my case, I couldn’t just fly over there and be taken seriously in the boardrooms – I had to really familiarise myself with what it’s like to be a consumer there before I knew what I was talking about.

“It’s essential to appreciate the different national mindset. Look at how Starbucks didn’t work out for them – because the independent coffee shops have so much more gravitas, cheaper services just don’t get any traction. There may be McDonald’s cafes on the roads out of town, but the cities relish the quality and character of their independent trade.

“Australia’s also been slower to adopt online, perhaps because its population is smaller and more spread out, so deliveries are harder.”

Even more established economies are not always what they appear to be. “Look at the US – we seem to want more of their attentive, customer-focused take on retail, but forget that there can be a lot of uncomfortable, overbearing qualities to it.  

“And it’s impossible to generalise. The US is vast, and its consumers take on so many different personas.”

According to The Customer Whisperer, business success comes down to one central tenet – you can’t lose sight of the individual at the heart of the selling process. 

“While we have to put them in a box for marketing purposes, every consumer has a unique DNA, and likes to be seen as an individual,” she explains. 

“If I’ve learned one thing in all my years of research, it’s that this preference stems from people’s desire to live and stand for something. There’s a fear of being forgotten – everyone wants a legacy, they don’t want to be just another number.

“There’s a fear of being forgotten – everyone wants a legacy, they don’t want to be just another number”

“In their efforts to become the best possible version of themselves, they try to tell their story in some way through their purchases. Maybe it’s something as simple as wearing orange to imply their individuality, or driving a hybrid car to show they care about the world.

“Whatever the reason, if you’re on the sales floor, you need to open that conversation to reach them. The best tip I can offer anyone is that old adage – two ears, one mouth, and serve, don’t sell.”

Online, data gathering enables a degree of personalisation in retail marketing that’s expensive, but well worth the investment, says Kate – even if the industry is currently experiencing something of a data overload, and “people don’t always know what to do with it”.

Technology may enable a step-change in how a business understands and approaches its customers – but it’ll only be successful if that business first understands itself. 

“I’ve come across plenty of arrogant businesses that have grand plans but never make any mention of the customer,” concludes Kate. “I encourage businesses to ask themselves three questions – who are we trying to reach, what is the product’s potential, and is it fit for purpose? How can you decide what your business is going to do if you don’t know what people want?”

The third season of Eat, Shop, Save will air on ITV next month.

© 2013 - 2024 Gearing Media Group Ltd. All Rights Reserved.