Director of retail and customer experience Kathryn Darbandi said the new system of 24 regional managers and 15 other reports, comprising large store managers or those with a ‘cluster’ of three or four shops, would remain.

The set-up resulted in the loss of 14 jobs, which Darbandi said had “already happened”.

“We’ve actually added three regional managers. That’s our structure exactly as we want it for another financial year and hopefully longer. There will be no changes,” she said.

Shop staff will also have a new selling system by April. “It will give all our agents the customer history that they currently do not have. We have a number of technological developments underway, it’s very exciting.”

Darbandi also used last week’s retail conference in Turkey to outline a new selling framework for retail staff. “We’re focusing on the behaviours and the way you say things – using this word instead of that word,” she said. Staff will be trained in using the techniques in the next 12 months.

Darbandi, who joined from Tui seven months ago, said she thought Cook had “turned a corner” following a period in which it had almost collapsed and more recently when it was vilified for its reaction to the death of two children in Corfu.

“I joined because I wanted to be part of that transformation,” she said.  “I feel we are already on our way.”