UK Customer Satisfaction Index July 2011: Executive Summary
The UK Customer Satisfaction Index (UKCSI) is the national measure of customer satisfaction for UK organisations. It's based on a representative sample of 26,000 adults surveyed over the internet.
Buy the complete, detailed sector scores from our shop.
Summary
- the overall index remained largely static from January to July 2011
- biggest index score increases were seen in the Public services (local) sector
- the telecoms sector also performed well
- Aldi continues to perform well
- complaints cost UK businesses billions of pounds a year
- organisations with higher index scores reduce the cost of complaints significantly
- the south west of England is the UK's most popular 'staycation' destination
Customer satisfaction
Customer satisfaction has remained essentially static across the UK as a whole, across most sectors. The biggest increase was in the Public services (local) sector.
Telecommunications has also seen an improvement, driven mostly by improved scores for all mobile providers. Landline and broadband providers have not fared so well.
UKCSI, July versus January 2011
The top 10
52 named organisations achieved a CSI over 80; six are over 85. The 10 highest scoring named organisations are:
- John Lewis (87)
- Marks & Spencer (food) (87)
- Waitrose (87)
- Virgin Atlantic (86)
- Marriott (86)
- First Direct (85)
- Aldi (84)
- Virgin Holidays
- Marks & Spencer (retail) (84)
- Boots (84)
Movers and shakers
Most of the sectors, particularly those near the top of the league table, have shown relatively little movement between January and July 2011.
However, when we look at individual companies we see some significant movers:
Retail—food
Aldi is the most improved food retailer. Its CSI of 84 is three points up on January's score. This puts it third behind Marks & Spencer and Waitrose in the sector, and also gains the company a place in the top 10 overall UK list.
A year of improved satisfaction has seen the company overtake competitors like ASDA, Morrisons, Sainsbury's and Tesco to reach that third spot.
By focusing on the things that matter to its customers Aldi is thriving in tough conditions.
Retail—non–food
In the non-food retail sector WH Smith has shown a very significant movement from January. Its CSI is up 8 points from January to 80, which places it 9th in a very tough sector.
Telecommunications
3 has made the biggest improvement of any organisation since January, improving its CSI by 9 points to 76.
Although it still lags behind O2, Orange, and T-Mobile it has overtaken Vodafone.
This also means that the mobile networks are more tightly bunched, with only 8 points separating the highest in the market from the lowest scoring.
Among landline providers BT is the most improved (up 2 points), while Talk Talk is the only telecoms provider to show a significant decrease in satisfaction.
Finance—insurance
The insurance market has been largely stable. Although BUPA has lost some ground it remains firmly at the top of the league table.
This is another very competitive market in terms of customer satisfaction, with the top 12 suppliers scoring between 77 and 82.
Finance—banks and building societies
First Direct and the Bank of Scotland have extended their lead at the head of the league table.
Other banks that have improved since January include Royal Bank of Scotland and HSBC (both up 2).
The only bank listed in our top 10 to have decreased since January is The Co-operative Bank, which has slipped back 3 points to 76.
Automotive
A number of car manufacturers have seen their scores improve, particularly Volvo and Toyota, who are both up 3 points.
This is another very competitive sector, with 8 companies scoring over 80.
Transport
The stand out success story in the transport sector is the Virgin brand, topping the league table with Virgin Atlantic at 86 (up 2 points, and one of the best organisations measured) and Virgin Trains at 79.
The impact of complaints
Sectors with higher CSI create fewer problems for customers
We've shown before that the level of customer satisfaction in each sector feeds through to the number of customers who say they have had a problem in the last 3 months.
Sectors with higher satisfaction have fewer customers who say they have experienced a problem.
Sectors with higher CSI are more likely to hear about problems
We also know that customers in sectors with higher satisfaction are slightly more likely to complain if they have a problem, giving organisations a chance to put things right.
This effect is less pronounced and more varied depending on the nature of the sector.Telecommunications, for example, is a clear exception to the trend.
Sectors with higher CSI have fewer complaints to deal with (even though they hear more)
When we put these two effects together, it is clear that the total number of complaints that an organisation will have to deal with is larger in sectors with lower satisfaction.
This applies even though they tend to hear about a smaller proportion of the problems they create.
The combined figure, shown on the vertical axis in the chart above, represents the percentage of the total customer base of organisations in each sector who say that they have complained in the last 3 months.
This is likely to be a far higher number than is captured in formal complaint systems because a ‘complaint’ is defined here as a customer telling any member of staff about their problem.
Resolution time is crucial
Resolution time has a big impact on customers' satisfaction with complaint handling, although there are many other important factors.
In particular there is a noticeable exception to the trend (stronger for the outcome than handling) at 3-4 weeks, suggesting that customers are sometimes happy to wait for their complaint to be resolved if it is resolved to their satisfaction.
Complaint resolution times vary widely by sector
For something that makes such a difference, the time taken to resolve complaints varies greatly from sector to sector.
In particular it's notable how many problems are resolved within 24 hours by organisations in the Leisure and Retail sectors.
Sectors with higher CSI deal with more complaints very quickly
The ability to deal with problems immediately is strongly linked to good customer service across the board. The best sectors overall are also those which resolve most complaints within 24 hours.
The cost of complaints
If we make some assumptions about the cost of handling complaints, we can start to see the financial impact that customer service failure has on organisations working in these sectors.
Organisations often estimate that a complaint which is handled at the first point of contact costs between £2.50 and £5.
That cost rises as complaints take longer to resolve and involve more points of contact.
Taking what we believe are conservative representative cost estimates, unresolved complaints will cost companies the following:
| Resolved | Cost |
|---|---|
| Immediately | £3 |
| Within 24 hours | £3 |
| 2–3 days | £5 |
| 4–7 days | £5 |
| 1–2 weeks | £10 |
| 3–4 weeks | £10 |
| Over 1 month | £15 |
| Still unresolved | £15 |
Based on these estimates, we can work out how much an organisation in each sector is likely to be spending per quarter on handling complaints for every 100 of its customers.
To get the full picture we would need to gross up to the total size of the customer base.
For instance, a mobile telecoms provider with 18 million customers would, on this basis, be spending over £23 million per quarter on handling complaints, or nearly £100 million per year.
Holidaying in the UK
We also use the UKCSI survey to take the temperature of the nation on a topical issue.
This time we explored people's attitudes to their holidays.
To begin with, we asked what proportion of people were planning a UK holiday this year. 40% of customers across the UK said they were.
Fortunately this proportion was identical among men and women, but there were noticeable differences by age.
Proportion of customers planning to holiday in the UK, by age
We asked all customers to choose which from a list of possible reasons were factors in their decision (note that customers could select more than one reason).
There's encouraging news for the UK tourist industry. Good experiences in the past are the main reason for people to choose a ‘staycation’.
Cost savings, unsurprisingly, are another major reason at the moment, but it's good to see that price perceptions are more likely to lead people to stay at home (48%) rather than drive them away (18%).
The desire to ‘get away from it all’ and the weather are the main drivers of people planning to holiday outside the UK.
We also asked people to indicate how much they agreed or disagreed with a number of statements about the UK tourist industry on a scale of 1 to 5.
The average scores in the chart below show the extent to which people agreed of disagreed with each statement. The chart paints a broadly positive picture.
Attitudes to the UK tourist industry
We asked people which region they think offers the best customer service to holidaymakers. The results (shown below) seem to show a significant lead for the South West and Scotland.
Which region offers the best customer service to holidaymakers?
We suspect there's an element of regional pride at work here, as respondents tended to favour their own region when answering this question!
In particular, 73% of Scots and 74% of people from the South West of England thought that their own region offers the best customer service to holidaymakers.
When weremoved customers who had voted for their own region from the analysis, the results are even more compelling.
Which region offers the best customer service (excluding those who said their own region)?
The data allow us to identify some trends:
-
Scotland is more highly rated by those in the North of England, Northern Ireland, and Wales than by those in the South of England
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The South West of England is seen as very good for customer service across the board, except for Northern Ireland, but is particularly popular in the South East
Scots rate the service in London more highly than people from other regions, with 38% of those who didn't choose Scotland stating that London was the best region for customer service.