Cunning plan
We started with the website problems. "We had some routine maintenance on Sunday night and a technical fault meant all three sites were down until Monday night," was all the light Webb could shed on the matter.
When we asked Webb if he can see why we might feel pessimistic about DSGi's future he conceded that the company's going through a tough period, but pointed us to the Renewal and Transformation Plan.
One of the biggest knocks on DSGi's stores has been their reputation for appalling customer service, with poorly trained and motivated sales assistants. It looks like this is a high priority for DSGi. "We've done a huge amount of work on customer service and product knowledge," said Webb. "We're looking to sell what the customer needs rather than what we want to sell them."
"We also need to improve our online offering and we'll soon be moving all our sites onto the excellent Pixmania operating platform," said Webb. Pixmania was a French consumer electronics etailer when DSGi acquired it a few years ago. It was not affected by the problem yesterday and DSGi is clearly still learning from it.
The mantra for the post-renewal DSGi is "Great value, great choice, great service," and while this sounds like the usual corporate hot air, it does address the three things that were considered weaknesses at DSGi stores. Intriguingly Webb revealed that they hope to introduce a lot more high-end products.