Kemp: Punch had to change

Punch Taverns tenanted division boss Deborah Kemp has explained how she has set about changing the culture at Punch Taverns in the past year to make it more customer-friendly.

Kemp, who took over the tenanted division a year ago, told an audience of Association of Licensed Multiple Retailers (ALMR) members that she has moved to focus the division on viewing licensees as their customers.

She said that the company had had credibility issues with licensees who had been telling it that some of its business development managers weren't "good enough"​.

The message from some licensees had been "Don't send us some idiot just out of school"​, Kemp told the audience.

Kemp said that some staff members at Punch had been talking about customers like they were commodities.

Some staff members, referring to problem licensees, were saying, "I'll get rid of them, I'll churn them"​ and that they had "caught the pub doing this or doing that"​.

She had sought to change attitudes by starting a much more pro-active engagement process and listening to customers.

Marketing support​

Kemp said she had also urged BDMs to learn from licensees and begun to gauge the kind of marketing support her licensees actually wanted.

There had also been moves to focus licensees on the supreme importance of managing their cash.

She told the audience: "Punch is not as big, bad and ugly as sometimes we're portrayed. ​

"We're much more responsive, much more flexible in responding to customers' needs."

Operations director Kevin Georgel also stressed that Punch had been determined to increase support for licensees by putting more resources in the field.

He added that this was a stark contrast with some competitors that have "taken out resource from the front-end of the business"​.