Brighthouse Are Trying Hard to Get Better
Radio Rentals evokes memories of terrible hair cuts, Ford Escorts and series of The Sweeney on knackered tv sets. Irrespective of this, one of its direct descendants BrightHouse is starting to recapture the place it lost on the high street through the rise of the likes of Currys, Dixons and Comet and the reduction in the price of televisions.
BrightHouse was created out of Thorn-EMI, the owner of Radio Rentals, by Terra Firma, Guy Hands’s private equity group. It earned infamy for very high APRs and expensive mandatory extra cover. Currentlythe group is on the front foot, working to clean up both its branches and its name as it embarks on a very ambitious growth programme. It plans to inaugurate 21 branches next year and calculates that there is room for at least 600.
Just a dozen of BrightHouse one hundred and seventy eight stores are in the big smoke, but, as Leo McKee, the straight-talking chief executive of the chain, states the high street becomes a very different place beyond the M25.
Its customers, almost solely from the lower socioeconomic segments are having trouble to get credit – if they ever could – as lenders cut their risk profiles.
“We are targeting areas that [Lloyds] TSB are moving away from,” Mr McKee stated. The prospect of BrightHouse stepping in to deliver credit to our most deprived areas will not satisfy everyone. Nevertheless Brighthouse’s CEO insists that this is an invalid perception.
“When I “started in my job [in 2004], we “requested a “external “market research to examine “the offering asking: ‘Is it sufficient?’ and: ‘Does it have longevity?’ he said.
“The results came back: your name on the high street is garbage; you’re seen as a rip-off merchant; the prices were high, the stores shabby.
“The first decision I made was to change all the prices to match the high street, on the day I found out [the results].”
The old thinking was that as far as customers could afford the weekly installment, they would not worry about the final price. And this thinking had knock-on effects right through the business.
That is what Brighthouse are now trying to sort out so their image improves amongst the general public.
