Will Lankston
Managing Director, Timpson Direct
Bede Timpson
Head of Innovation and Development, Timpson
In 160 years of trading, Timpson has built one of the UK’s most warmly regarded high street brands. Here’s the story of how they chose a payments partner that shared their values.
Still family-owned, the group now spans everything from shoe repairs and key cutting to photo printing and personalisation, barbers and hospitality, including ski hotels, all run on a simple belief: the people closest to the customer should have the most power.
When it looked for a new payments partner, it applied the same test: Does this organisation share our values? Can we trust its people?
The answer was Planet.
What followed was a major payment rollout across thousands of locations and a partnership that has set a new benchmark for supplier relationships.
Upside-down management in action
Founded in Manchester in 1865, Timpson is one of the UK’s largest service retailers, with 2,150 shops, thousands of vending machines and a portfolio spanning key cutting, watch repair, dry cleaning, photo printing, barber shops and hospitality.
The company calls its management philosophy upside-down management: shop-floor colleagues are the most important people in the business, and everyone else exists to support them.
As Will Lankston, Timpson Direct Managing Director, puts it, “The colleagues serving our customers and putting money in the till are the kings and queens of the business. Everyone else is there to support them.”
That culture of trust and kindness shapes everything Timpson does. The company is the UK’s largest employer of people with lived experience of prison, runs a charity that supports children who have had a difficult start to life (funding holidays for foster families and research into attachment) and is a proud member of the Fair Tax scheme. It holds its suppliers to the same standard it sets for itself.
Beyond technology: the support model that mattered
Timpson’s payments estate is complex: thousands of in-person terminals across multiple brands (Timpson, Max Spielmann, Snappy Snaps, The Watch Lab, Johnsons), plus remote terminals for field and security engineers; Pay by Link payments via text and email for select journeys; and a fast-growing vending and self-service estate.
Managing this with Planet, supported by Barclaycard Payments acquiring services, demanded more than a terminal supplier. It required a partner with both the technology and the people to match.
When Timpson went to market, they made the shortlist for terminal provider on technical and commercial grounds, but it was the people who clinched it. At the final stage, Timpson’s senior team subjected their leadership to what Will Lankston describes as “around 150 questions about how their support would work in practice.”
“At the end of the day, they were the ones who gave us confidence they would look after us. And they’ve stuck to their word.”
“Service and support were huge for us,” says Will. “They really stood out. What we’ve valued most is their accountability, the confidence that if anything ever needs resolving, it will be owned and fixed. That’s not something you can take for granted.”
That matters even more as Timpson adds self-service locations, where colleagues are not on hand to troubleshoot and uptime becomes part of the customer experience.
The company calls its management philosophy upside-down management: shop-floor colleagues are the most important people in the business, and everyone else exists to support them
Less noise, more uptime: outcomes that stick
The company deployed 5,500 terminals across 2,000 locations in approximately three months, coordinating across different store formats, brand environments and Timpson’s own field engineering teams.
“This was by far the easiest transition we’ve been through,” says Will. “They managed the complexity, and what’s been most impressive is their willingness to adapt to our needs rather than making us fit their process.”
At Timpson, the results are measured in the metric that matters most: colleague happiness. Terminal uptime improved, support SLAs are now consistently met, and payment complaints have all but disappeared.
“Complaints about terminals went from a daily or weekly issue to something that’s barely mentioned,” says Will. “When that noise disappeared, we knew we’d made the right move.”
What’s next
Timpson’s self-service plans include more key-cutting kiosks and a major expansion of its unattended 24/7 launderettes, hand-built in Keighley, West Yorkshire. The plans are expected to add up to 2,000 units over the next twelve months, with the company supporting the payments infrastructure.
“Growth at our current pace would once have raised serious questions around terminals,” says Will. “Now it’s just business as usual.”
Bede Timpson, Head of Innovation and Development, says inclusion is central to Timpson’s laundrette design. “We want the experience to be simple, intuitive and accessible, with no barriers at the point of use,” he says.
With Planet keeping payments reliable, secure, and straightforward to manage across attended and unattended sites, Timpson can focus on expanding access and delivering great service.
Planet provides Timpson Group with in-person payment terminals, gateway services and Pay by Link across its retail estate. Discover more at weareplanet.com
