New River is a UK based real estate investor, focused on retail and leisure, with over £1bn worth of assets including 300 pubs and 35 shopping centres.
The Brief: As the New River portfolio of centres faced increasing pressure from online retail and the decline of UK high streets, IWP were appointed to lead transformational change across the group, introducing a whole new customer experience strategy and development and placemaking across several key sites.
Delivery: Highlighting that a ‘one size fits all’ approach to service would not work, The IWP team visited every centre, producing a bespoke plan for each centre, which reflected its individual brand, customer demographic and position in the local community. In addition to centre-specific solutions, national workshops were delivered to transform and reinvigorate the portfolios whole customer service ethos, ensuring all teams from board to shopfloor were aligned on the strategy.
In addition, IWP led the brand and design execution on several centre developments, introducing market-leading leisure and family facilities such as high quality, sensory children’s play centres, customer service lounges and unique emporiums for high quality, local independents, all designed to delight shoppers, who were surprised to see such detail and experiential execution in their local community shopping centre.
