Harrods offers to shop the favored few

Harrods is set to dispatch a team of staff into its giant Knightsbridge store to carry out personal shopping for its most prized customers.

Staff will take orders from clients via telephone and smartphone messaging as part of the first stage of a phased reopening of Britain’s most famous department store.

Harrods said the ‘remote clienteling’ service would begin on May 18 and cater for ‘one-on-one relationships that our retail colleagues have with customers’.

It would require a ‘very small number’ of the retailer’s 5,000 staff to launch the service while adhering to social distancing.

But it would use the operation to test whether it could extend the service following the initial launch.

‘We are exploring technology to scale as required ahead of being able to phase to inviting customers back in store,’ said a spokesman.

Harrods said the next phase would likely see customers allowed to return to departments of the store where it was easier to practise social distancing.

The spokesman added: ‘Timings for this will naturally be dictated by Government guidance.

‘We are taking this opportunity to explore, to test and to learn how we as a business adapt to changing circumstances. But every decision we make will be guided by our commitment to safety.’

Source: Daily Mail Online