The importance of building consumer confidence is now crystal clear, says Lord Kirkham

However hard we struggle to think outside the box, most of us continue to bash against its sides like the proverbial bluebottle captured in a jam jar. For me, true 20/20 consumer vision only came when I finally sold DFS.

After 41 years of struggling to stand in the customers’ shoes and see things through their eyes, I finally grasped how hard it is for people immersed in and managing a business to stand back far enough to do that.

But as the song nearly says, “I can see clearly now the sofas have gone”. And what I see with crystal- like clarity is that retailing is all about building and retaining consumer confidence.

Since even the most optimistic of the pundits describe current consumer confidence as “fragile”, our priority is to stiffen up that fragility - to make it more robust.

And the good news is we can.

Let us focus on the positive, it becomes contagious. Talk the job up and make our customers smile - smiley, happy customers spend money. So our compliments need to be more lavish, our welcome more hearty and our service - well, going the extra mile will be nowhere near enough.

Service should extend beyond your stores. If you have not fully embraced the web to sell before now, recent reports of record numbers of roadside breakdowns through cars running out of fuel should galvanise action.

After years of age-related subconscious resistance, I am finally a fully paid-up and über-enthusiastic web convert. If you aren’t reading the latest bestseller on your Kindle, why wouldn’t you buy the book from Amazon?

Who buys their flights or train tickets anywhere else, or knows what their bank looks like any more? Groceries are a no-brainer. And the fact is people are increasingly happy to trust the web

for their larger and more important acquisitions, be it a car, sofa, property or sexual partner.

With opportunities in short supply, here is a no-brainer, mega opportunity. Surely this really is the ‘buy online, we deliver to your door’ moment.

Staff morale, always a priority, also assumes a greater importance than ever now and I would sacrifice a bit of margin, web or store, to get whatever business there is around.

Because it will make your customers, staff and suppliers all smile, and keeping everyone busy and happy has to be good morale-boosting therapy.

I have no doubt, hackneyed as it is, that the tough do get going in times like these. There are real opportunities for those of us tough enough to smile easily in adversity, recognise the requirements of our boss - the customer - and crank that web offer up quickly.

of priority to developing a convincing, fun, easy-to-use internet proposition that inspires consumer confidence.

But what an opportunity for the bold. Make the most of it, keep your spirits up and whistle a merry tune like “I can see clearly now the sofas are gone”.

Lord Kirkham is the founder of DFS