James Hall & Co wins national Post Office partnership award

James Hall & Co. Ltd has won a national Post Office partnership award for Customer Service Excellence in its SPAR stores.

The accolade was presented to James Hall & Co. Ltd’s G&E Murgatroyd company stores division at a glitzy ceremony at Landing Forty Two in London.

James Hall & Co. Ltd has 39 Post Offices in its company SPAR store estate across the North of England and the award acknowledges the investment made into Post Office services by the business, and into people operating those services.

It also rewarded an improvement in customer service scores which are consistently high and are at an exceptional standard.

In the last year, wait times were reduced by 45 per cent to 1.3 minutes at Post Office counters in the company’s SPAR stores and this is reflected in a 16 per cent improvement in customer satisfaction scores.

This year also saw a new Post Office branch open at SPAR North Seaton to ensure customers in the local community can access necessary services including banking through their local SPAR store.

Fiona Drummond, company stores director at James Hall & Co. Ltd, said: “This award is richly deserved for the Post Office team we have here at James Hall. I am very proud of their efforts as they have worked extremely hard to achieve success by developing the offer in our SPAR stores.

“Our stores are at the heart of communities, and we have excellent, professional retail staff in our stores with great knowledge of all transactions undertaken at the counters.

“What is more, they are also willing to go the extra mile for customers and are keen to learn more as new services are introduced.

“Our counters are also staffed accordingly at the busiest times of day too, and this combination has ensured our improvement in customer satisfaction.

“We are always exploring options to grow Post Office provision within our stores and have new projects in the pipeline. We look forward to 2024 and another fruitful year of the partnership between SPAR, James Hall, and the Post Office.”

James Hall & Co. Ltd is a fifth-generation family business which serves a network of independent SPAR retailers and company-owned SPAR stores across Northern England six days a week from its base at Bowland View in Preston.