I learned retail by keeping a promise. I've been applying the lesson ever since.
I'm Bruce Herscovici, founder and Managing Director of Mile End Retail Group. For more than 25 years I have built, run and repaired the channels Canadian companies use to reach their customers: corporate stores, dealers, national retailers, call centres, online and door-to-door. Now I help other leaders do the same.
"The future is friendly."
Clearnet brand promise, 1999
1999 · CLEARNET
No retail experience, one brand promise
In May 1999 I was asked to lead Clearnet's retail operations. The program was six months old and had 30 kiosks across Canada. I had no retail experience at all. What I inherited was a great team and a brand promise worth keeping: technology is intimidating, and our job was to replace that fear with curiosity and help Canadians make the decision that was right for them.
I went looking for who delivered great experiences consistently. That led me to Disney, and to a copy of Inside the Magic Kingdom bought on the way home that evening. It was the start of an education in how a promise becomes a standard, and a standard becomes a habit.
2000–2012 · TELUS
From a store chain to seven channels
When TELUS acquired Clearnet in 2000, we installed a store management operating system and a leadership culture built on coaching. One of its simplest tools stayed with me. When performance falls short, ask four questions:
Know: Do they know how to do it?
Can: Can they show me they can do it?
Systems: Do our systems and processes help or get in the way?
Want: Do they want to? Purpose, mastery, autonomy.
As Senior Vice President, Channels, I later led TELUS' entire multichannel network, with 2,500 people across stores, dealers, national retailers, online, call centres and field sales. The lesson from that job is the foundation of Mile End: the four questions apply to channels as much as to people.
2008 · THE IPHONE MOMENT
When experience beat product
When Rogers launched the iPhone as the exclusive canadian carrier, everyone expected us to lose share. We didn't. Our teams used the brand promise to help each customer find the best experience for them, whether or not that was the phone on the billboards. That is when I stopped thinking of customer experience as a nice idea and started treating it as a durable competitive advantage.
2013–TODAY
Every side of the table
At The Source and Rogers I ran national networks of corporate stores and dealers. At WOW Mobile Boutique I ran the partner: an outsourced operator selling six carriers' brands. Most recently I diagnosed a dealer channel from the outside and found it underinvested in, not underperforming.
I started Mile End Retail Group to bring that experience to organizations that sell through more than one channel and want those channels working together—not competing with one another.