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Listen to the full interview with Pat Riley on a special episode of The kbbreview Podcast. Hear it now by using the player at the bottom of this post or go straight to it in Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube. Alternatively, simply search ‘kbbreview’ wherever you get your podcasts.

Patrick Riley sounds energised. After several years away from the day-to-day running of Bathroom Brands, the company’s acting CEO has returned with a clear sense of purpose if not, initially at least, a sense of slight trepidation.

“It was a mixture of fear and excitement coming back,” he says. “But, in reality, it’s been 90% pleasure and 10% grind so it’s actually a pretty good ratio.”

Riley and Crosswater founder Dave Hance have stepped back into the business at a critical moment – not just for Bathroom Brands, but for the wider bathroom market too. After a period marked by software implementation issues, operational problems and a growing distance between the company and its customers, the founders have re-engaged to personally put things back on track.

“The business had lost its desire to look after the customer,” Riley says bluntly. “And a very simple philosophy of mine has always been that if the customer’s happy, then everyone is happy… our staff, our customers, their customers, our shareholders.

“And I just got very frustrated that we were becoming too bureaucratic and weren’t focusing enough on looking after the customer.”

If that sounds forthright, it’s because Riley isn’t really interested in subtlety when it comes to putting Bathroom Brands back on the right path. He has long believed in businesses built on relationships, service, straight talking and, crucially, he thinks the industry is more in need of those fundamentals than ever.

“The market is tough,” he says. “With Rachel Reeves and her cohorts, I’m not that optimistic that it will improve significantly, thanks to poor management of the economy and the poor planning laws. But, at the end of the day, I do believe there’s plenty of business out there and we just need to get more market share. So I’m really not interested in people complaining, just get out there and deliver.”

Attitude

Riley’s return to Bathroom Brands – along with Hance and several other familiar faces – has clearly injected a new spirit into the business. “There is a new energy in the business and more of a can-do attitude where decisions are made a lot quicker,” he says.

One of the first major initiatives under his restored leadership is the launch of ‘Sets’ – a deceptively simple idea designed to solve a very real customer frustration. When ordering a complete showering system, retailers will now simply choose a single boxed solution containing everything required.

“When you order, you look at a picture and that’s what you buy,” Riley explains. “So everything for your showering system will be in one box. It’s one box, one price, one code. It’s really simple.”

And Riley believes it’s exactly this kind of practical, customer-first thinking – backed up by decisive leadership – that will enable Bathroom Brands to regain its former strength.

“We’re in a people business,” he says. “We sell products, but the reality is people buy from people as always.”

To support that principle, the company has expanded its sales team and reduced the size of ASM patches to ensure more regular customer contact and personal interaction.

But this people-first approach will be backed up by significant technology investment too with Bathroom Brands currently investing heavily in a new customer interface that Riley believes will set a new benchmark in the sector.

“The main thing that we’re working on now is a customer portal that means they can order online from us and see what stock we’ve got,” he says. “If we’re out of stock, it will show them alternative products and we’ll have end-to-end customer invoicing and management, proof of deliveries, back orders, be able to do returns, and track deliveries.”

Digital future

This, for Riley, is where the future lies –  a merging of traditional relationship-based selling with the immediacy and transparency of modern digital logistics.

“Life has moved on,” he says. “And I think our customers would rather just be able to do everything live, online, at night, on weekends, whenever they want to.”

Despite the investment in technology, Riley repeatedly stresses that Bathroom Brands is a business that must remain agile, human and attuned to its customers. That means pricing, too, is under scrutiny.

“By the middle of January, we’ll  have realigned all our pricing downwards with some really significant reductions,” he says. “For years this industry has just put its prices up one after the other but we’re looking to grow by 20% this year so we’ve got to do some things differently.”

Looking more broadly at the supplier market, Riley does not believe the UK bathroom sector is oversupplied or saturated. “I think the world is competitive in any industry you’re going to.” While he foresees some casualties this year, he does not envision large-scale consolidation.

Riley also remains a firm believer in the long-term viability of bricks-and-mortar retail despite the success of online companies such as Victorian Plumbing.  “Bathrooms are very different to many other products,” he says. “People are only buying a bathroom every ten years or so and they don’t really know what they want until they go on the journey. 

“So will there be independent retailers in 50 years time? Absolutely.”

As for Riley himself, he may joke about preferring Netflix and golf, but the truth is he is relishing being back in the thick of it, especially alongside the three of his children who have joined the business. “I’m just loving working with my kids,” he says, beaming.

And while he freely admits the current 14-hour days won’t last forever, he shows no sign of wavering. With new systems underway, pricing realigned, Sets launched and a rebuilt leadership team in place, Riley is firmly focused on restoring Bathroom Brands to the customer-centric business he believes it must be.

“Just make it easy,” he says. “If the customer’s happy, then everyone is happy.”

Listen to the full interview with Pat Riley now using the player below…