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Customer Service Manual For Marks And Spencer

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Assignment 3 Introduction: Marks and Spencer is one of the UK 's leading retailer business organisations. They have 21 million people visiting their stores each week. They sell clothing, home products, as well as food, responsibly sourced from around 2,000 suppliers globally. Their clothing and home ware sales account for 49% of their business while their food sales account for 51%. Now more than ever, they are also known for their green credentials as a result of their five-year eco plan, Plan A, which will see them, amongst other things, become carbon neutral and send no waste to landfill by 2012. This assignment requires me to compile a customer service training manual for Marks and Spencer. It will include a background to …show more content…

The company 's share price fell by more than two thirds, and its profits fell from more than a billion pounds in 1997 and 1998 to £145 million in the year ended 31 March 2001. Marks & Spencer launched an online shopping service in 1999. In 2001, with changes in its business focus such as accepting credit cards, the introduction of the "Per Una" clothing range designed by George Davies, accompanied by a redesign of its underlying business model, profits recovered somewhat and Marks & Spencer recovered some of its market share, but it was soon evident that problems remained. In 2004, Marks & Spencer was in the throes of an attempted takeover by Arcadia Group & BHS boss, Philip Green. On 12 July a recovery plan was announced which would involve selling off the financial services business to HSBC Bank plc, buying control of the Per Una range, closing the Gateshead Lifestore and stopping the expansion of its Simply Food line of shops. Philip Green withdrew his takeover bid after failing to get sufficient backing from shareholders. M&S is currently ranked 21 in The Times ' "Top 100 Graduate Employers 2010–11" Competitors Marks and Spencer’s main clothing competitors are brand name stores like TopShop, Debenhams and Next.

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