instituteofcustomerservice.com JANUARY 2019 UK Customer Satisfaction Index The state of customer satisfaction in the UK Foreword Joanna Causon Chief Executive Through the UKCSI, The Institute has tracked the state or government act to tackle perceived underperformance. of customer satisfaction in the UK since 2008. During The local and national Public Services sectors continue to this time we’ve seen significant change, with more show a gradually improving trend in customer satisfaction, challenging customers, and many sectors and organisations even as they contend with ongoing financial constraints, undergoing transformation. The essential components although there is a wide variety of performance across of great customer experiences haven’t fundamentally organisation types. The shared and gig economy continues changed during this time. However, in the January to grow, challenging established organisations and business 2019 UKCSI I am delighted to share an expanded set of models, but coming under greater scrutiny in terms of measures which reflect customers’ priorities in the context employee and customer relationships. Across the UK of both their interactions and overall relationship with an economy, levels of employment are high but productivity organisation. and GDP growth remain stubbornly low. Meanwhile, Brexit continues to dominate the political agenda and generate Customers continue to attach high importance to product uncertainty for organisations, employees and customers. or service reliability and quality and employee competence, attitude and helpfulness. In addition, our research has So how should organisations respond to this climate of found that emotional connection, ethics and the sense stalling customer satisfaction, low growth, political and that organisations genuinely build experiences around economic uncertainty? their customers’ needs significantly influence customer satisfaction. As a result, this UKCSI contains new measures I believe the UKCSI provides compelling evidence that that give a richer understanding of current customer needs the challenges of customer satisfaction, employee and priorities, whilst maintaining a consistent, robust engagement, productivity and business performance are benchmark of customer satisfaction performance. inextricably linked and require a sustained and joined-up focus. Delivering a consistent quality of right first time This UKCSI shows a further slight fall in overall customer transactional experiences is fundamental to customer satisfaction. The number of customers who experienced satisfaction and productivity. Our research also highlights a problem with an organisation has increased and is at broader relationship attributes that influence trust, its highest ever level. Fewer experiences were rated by satisfaction and advocacy of organisations. These include customers as “right first time.” The level of effort expended an emotional connection, ethics and a genuine customer by customers in dealing with organisations increased ethos. slightly. However, satisfaction with complaint handling improved in most sectors. Without this improvement, the Achieving high levels of customer satisfaction that enable drop in overall customer satisfaction would have been sustained business performance depends on developing a more pronounced. Our evidence shows that consistently service-orientated culture in which leadership commitment, achieving the highest levels of customer satisfaction is operational excellence, relationships and behaviours are strongly linked to trust, recommendation, reputation rooted in an organisation’s values and an understanding of and business performance. Yet for many organisations, customers’ priorities. As we move forward in increasingly consistently delivering essential transactional customer uncertain times, driving the customer agenda will become experiences continues to be a challenge. even more crucial. I firmly believe that the organisations who do this will survive and prosper. Across the 13 sectors measured by the UKCSI, the customer experience challenges are dynamic, unpredictable and often unforgiving. The Retail sector is experiencing intense structural change, driven by evolving customer preferences and economic pressures. In key regulated sectors there is growing scrutiny of organisations’ customer satisfaction performance and a heightened expectation that regulators UK Customer Satisfaction Index | January 2019 1 2 UK Customer Satisfaction Index | January 2019 Contents Executive summary 4 Part 1 Understanding customers’ priorities 14 Part 2 Customer satisfaction in the UK 22 Part 3 Customer satisfaction and business performance 46 Part 4 Conclusion and recommendations 54 Organisations in the UKCSI 63 About the UKCSI 64 UKCSI sector reports 65 Recent breakthrough research publications 66 UK Customer Satisfaction Index | January 2019 3 Executive Summary The UKCSI is 77.7 (out of 100), 0.4 points lower than a year ago and 0.2 points below July 2018 Though the decline in customer satisfaction is modest, it is the third consecutive drop. Customer satisfaction is at its lowest point since July 2016. 78.2 78.2 78.1 77.9 77.8 77.9 77.7 77.4 77.1 77.0 76.3 76.2 76.0 72.0 Jan-09 Jan-13 Jan-15 Jan-19 The proportion of customers experiencing a Customers’ trust in the organisation they dealt problem, 13.9%, is up by 1.2 percentage points with is stable. It has remained at 7.7 in six compared to January 2018 and is at its highest consecutive UKCSI reports dating back to July ever level. The proportion of experiences rated 2016. as right first time has fallen, by 2.3 percentage points, to 78.5%. Satisfaction with complaint The level of customer effort expended by handling, 5.9 (out of 10), is at its highest customers in dealing with organisations is at its ever level. However, complaint handling is highest ever, 5.0. Although this measure has emphatically the lowest scoring dimension of been broadly flat over the last two years, it is 0.5 satisfaction in the UKCSI. points higher than in January 2016. UK Customer Satisfaction Index | January 2019 5 The January 2019 has been developed so that it reflects current customer needs and priorities, whilst providing a consistent benchmark of organisations’ customer satisfaction performance Our research1 reaffirms that customers’ most In this UKCSI, as well as continuing to report important stated priorities are for product an overall index score, we have introduced / service reliability and quality, employee a customer satisfaction scorecard of five competence, attitude and helpfulness. dimensions reflecting the effectiveness of customers’ interactions with organisations, as In addition, a range of emotional and well as the quality of their overall relationship relationship needs are strongly linked to overall with an organisation. These dimensions enable a customer satisfaction. They include feeling richer, more nuanced understanding of customer reassured, expectations consistently being needs and priorities. met, promises being kept, trust and perceived reputation. Index score The UKCSI scorecard (out of 100) Experience Measures the quality of customers’ experiences and interactions with 78.7 organisations Complaints 59.4 How organisations respond and deal with problems and complaints Customer Ethos Extent to which customers perceive that organisations genuinely care 77.5 about customers and build the experience around their customers’ needs Emotional Connection The extent to which an organisation engenders feelings of trust and 77.0 reassurance Ethics Reputation, openness and transparency and the extent to which an 75.8 organisation is deemed to “do the right thing” 1 More information about the customer priorities research is available in Experiences, Emotions and Ethics: refreshing the customer priorities that underpin the UK Customer Satisfaction Index , Institute of Customer Service, 2018. Available at www.instituteofcustomerservice.com/research 6 UK Customer Satisfaction Index | January 2019 Only three sectors – Insurance, Services and Transport – have moved by more than one point compared to last year Insurance is the only sector in which customer satisfaction has risen by at least one point. Two sectors - Services and Transport - have fallen Insurance is the only sector in by more than one point. Customer satisfaction in which customer satisfaction has the Transport sector, 71.8, is at its lowest since risen by at least one point July 2009. Average satisfaction fell across each of the rail, air and coach / bus modes of transport. Rail companies suffered the largest average decline, of 2.2 points. 50 60 70 80 90 100 81.6 Retail (Non-food) 82.0 Retail (Food) 80.6 81.3 Banks & Building Societies 80.4 79.8 Leisure 80.3 80.0 Tourism 80.3 80.7 Insurance 79.8 78.7 Automotive 78.9 79.5 76.9 Services 78.7 Public Services (National) 76.1 76.1 Public Services (Local) 75.7 75.0 Telecommunications & Media 74.4 74.2 73.8 Utilities 74.4 71.8 UKCSI January 2019 Transport 73.7 UKCSI January 2018 UK Customer Satisfaction Index | January 2019 7 first direct is the most highly rated organisation for customer satisfaction, followed by John Lewis, M & S (bank), Next and Amazon.co.uk Change Jan-19 Jan-19 Jan-18 Jan-18 in score Organisation Sector Rank Score Score Rank Jan-18 to Jan-19 1 first direct Banks & Building Societies 86.7 86.1 2 0.6 p 2 John Lewis Retail (Non-food) 86.5 85.0 5 1.5 p 3 M & S (Bank) Banks & Building Societies 86.3 84.7 7 1.6 p 4 Next Retail (Non-food) 85.8 83.9 13 1.9 p 5 = Amazon.co.uk Retail (Non-food) 85.4 86.6 1 -1.2 q 5 = Nationwide Banks & Building Societies 85.4 84.7 7 0.7 p 7 Netflix Leisure 85.1 82.8 24 2.3 p 8 Argos Retail (Non-food) 84.1 81.4 46 2.7 p 9 Nationwide Insurance Insurance 84.0 83.6 19 0.4 p 10 LV= Insurance 83.9 81.7 42 2.2 p p Increase in UKCSI score of less than one point q Fall in UKCSI score p Increase in UKCSI score of one point or more Ratings for individual organisations across the full range of UKCSI measures and scorecard dimensions are available in the series of 13 sector reports published by The Institute alongside this UKCSI report2.