Senior Store Manager – Luxury Technology Boutique

Dyson Retail is Different, for a number of reasons. Firstly, this is a firm of expert engineers, offering people the chance to connect with technology in store. This means that the process of creating new owners needs to be about delivering a high-end, luxury experience, demonstrating the value of the technology and providing aftersales care. We want to support owners in getting the best out of their Dyson technology.

Secondly, this is a new retail concept in a fundamentally entrepreneurial, start-up feeling business.

This means that everyone in store needs to be prepared to do anything and everything required, to run the business and provide the best customer experience. A manager might start the morning briefing the team, checking on price changes and ensuring the store looks great. Then there might be time on the shop floor, role-modelling great service, technology demos and sales, whilst observing the team doing the same and offering feedback to help them improve. Lunchtime might bring about a challenge, maybe a shortage of stock or discovering that owners have not received their items meant for delivery today. The manager will be problem-solving, thinking like a business owner and looking for ways to innovate, keep owners happy and ensure an efficient process. In the afternoon the manager might be scheduling staff, forecasting budgets and considering ways to build the Dyson reputation locally, networking within the shopping mall and setting up events to attract more footfall.

So what makes a Dyson Manager? We are looking for people who can:

Role model outstanding service: managers will be interested in learning all about our technology and sharing that insight with others. Managers (and Experts) will not just be showing customers the technology, they will be learning all about the engineering, science and the potential to make life better. 

We go above and beyond for our owners, showing them that we care about their life experiences beyond simply selling them our product – and this needs to be role-modelled for the team. We also need managers to role model proactivity and taking initiative, so our managers are the first people to tidy the store, clean and show care for everything being done to the highest quality, inspiring the team to do the same.

Manage like an entrepreneur or business owner: we love our entrepreneurial, start-up feel and so we are a retail store without the big processes and systems that many other retailers have. This brings flexibility for each store to work in the way that best suits their local market. The challenge is the need to problem-solve and innovate. The store could be in an area where Dyson is completely unknown as a brand, so customers will not be looking for the technology and are more likely to challenge the price. How a manager innovates to attract footfall to the store and overcome objections on price will be critical to the store’s success. Likewise, there may be challenges with supply chain, reporting, stock inventory, managing the P&L, sales forecasting and attracting staff to work for an unknown brand and particularly an unknown retailer. Managers will be addressing these challenges without the support of standard operating procedures or a big retail support team, so they need to be resilient and innovative in how they find and optimise opportunities in all of this. The best managers are those who are excited by this opportunity, to shape a new retail experience.

Develop an outstanding team: managers need to be comfortable observing the team and giving constructive feedback, building skills and confidence in Experts, so that they deliver outstanding service. But it’s more than that, our best managers create a culture in store where people feel challenged and empowered to grow. Asking Experts about their career goals and helping them explore their skills and potential, managers have the gift of improving staff retention and performance by providing an excellent place to work.