Case Study: The Midcounties Co-operative achieves improved customer experience and faster issue resolution with InMoment

Customer Insights Help Midcounties Co-operative Focus on What Matters Most

The Midcounties Co-operative is the UK’s largest independent co‑op—500+ sites, 600,000+ members and over £1 billion turnover—offering food retail, childcare, energy, funeralcare and more. After appointing Phil Ponsonby as Group General Manager for Food Retail, the business set out to shift from process‑driven decisions to a customer‑centric approach, addressing inconsistent in‑store experiences (notably long queuing times) and the need to put member and customer insight at the heart of operations.

Midcounties partnered with InMoment to launch the Customer First programme and the Talk to Us feedback platform across 229 stores, collecting 25,000+ responses in year one, using real‑time alerts, text analytics and a Customer Experience Framework to prioritize touchpoints, drive local action and tailor training (train‑the‑trainer) for colleagues. The programme plus new roles (Insights Manager, Customer Experience Coordinator) delivered measurable gains: a peak OSAT/customer satisfaction score of 75 (Mar 2017), a 11.7% lift in Talk to Us NPS, a 6.6% increase in OSAT, a 5% rise in Customer Loyalty Index, and external recognition with the “Best Customer Focus” award.

The Midcounties Co-operative

Phil Ponsonby

Food Retail Group General Manager