Boss wants Thistles to be top of the shops
Customer experience is priority for manager Philip
A Londoner who managed one of the UK capital’s iconic shopping centres has taken over the helm at The Thistles in Stirling.
Philip Byrne is a man with a mission to improve the customer experience at the centre which opened in 1977 and last year attracted 9.2 million visitors.
The 54-year-old is employed by real estate services company Jones Lang LaSalle who manage the centre on behalf of owners Standard Life Investments. Mr Byrne was born in Wandsworth, South London, and for 26 years worked for WH Smith at stores all over the country, including Heathrow Airport, Lake District, Manchester and Liverpool.
He moved from WH Smith’s into centre management before being appointed manager of Whiteleys Shopping Centre in Queensway, West London.
Spread over five floors and located in an Grade Two-listed building in the Bayswater area, Whiteley’s was London’s first department store and has a history going back to 1863.
And on April 4, after six years at Whiteleys, Mr Byrne took up his new post at The Thistles. He succeeds Tony Wilkes who has moved on from the Thistles.
“It was time for a new challenge and to look at taking on something slightly different,” he told the Observer. “Whiteleys was a multi-floor shopping centre of 300,000 square feet while The Thistles is on one floor and extends to 500,000 square feet.
“I am relishing the challenge of taking the centre forward and, on a personal note, I enjoy the outdoor life and like walking and fishing, so this area ticks a lot of boxes in that respect.”
At present, The Thistles is home to 80 stores and has a 90 per cent occupancy rate although that figure was given before uncertainty clouded the future of BHS, one of the centre’s anchor stores for years.
Mr Byrne revealed that they were expecting two new arrivals: House of Tartan and Tiger, a Scandinavian company selling gifts and household goods.
Discussions are continuing with potential clients about the unit, formerly occupied by Costa, at the Murray Place entrance.
Work on coping stones, which has led to scaffolding being erected on the exterior of The Thistles is due to be completed within a couple of weeks. And Mr Byrne explained his first aim will be to improve The Thistles’ “food and beverage offering” by increasing the number of cafes and restaurants there.
He added: “It is about customer experience, providing a place in which you can come and shop, have a coffee or lunch and then shop some more. It’s about ‘dwell time’, the amount of time people spend in the centre, and we want to increase that.”
And he added: “We are fighting the internet and it is always going to be a concern but luckily the Great British public is still touchy-feely and that is where we come in but we have to get the experience right and if you can do that, you can get an affiliation to you.”
He is backing the Stirling Gateway Project, which aims to improve access between Stirling’s rail and bus stations and the city centre. And he has joined the City Commissioners, the group drawn from business and education working with the Stirling Council on regeneration
I hope in the next 12 months we have in place a first-class experience for all our customers