Rail, Retail and Reality

What can the rail industry can learn from retailing?

Nick Chisnall

The big lessons, we suggest, lie in the areas of loyalty and engagement; customer insight and managing the customer experience across multiple channels. The common theme in these lessons is encapsulated in the way in which customer relation management (CRM) is being superseded by customer experience management (CEM). Retail has evolved from a focus on capturing customers and maximising their value via relationship management to a new focus on delivering meaningful, valued experiences to customers and managing this delivery across the organisation and all its capabilities.

As it morphs into a modern, mass market consumer proposition and leaves behind an era of undifferentiated utility service, what can rail learn from the retail sector – a great success story in contemporary business change? It’s our opinion that rail organisations are in an ideal position to leapfrog a generation of development and investment by leveraging the best that retailers have done while bypassing the initiatives that didn’t make the grade.

Nick Chisnall is Head of Rail at Fujitsu UK & Ireland

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