As a customer of all three organisations it was no surprise to me to find First Direct, John Lewis and Waitrose holding the top three spots in a recent Which? survey on customer service.
First Direct continues to differentiate itself from others by excelling at understanding and interacting with its customers in a convenient and friendly manner rather than through any particularly exciting product range - its banking facilities are competitive rather than cheap or particularly innovative.
And by getting the basics right – answering the phone in just a couple of rings whenever it’s 1.16million customers choose to call, handling most enquiries at the first point of contact, provide efficient self service facilities through its website and by creating a “black and white” persona attractive to young, affluent customers – First Direct prides itself in being the UK’s most recommended bank.
Something that Santander, and its myriad of acquired UK banks must envy looking up at First Direct from its position near the bottom of the Which? customer service survey.
Others near the bottom include AOL Broadband and TalkTalk and utility companies continue to perform poorly as they compete on price in an effort to gain an increasing market share to drive shareholder value in notoriously low margin sectors where products are largely indistinguishable – or in the case of utilities the same.
But even these organisations are beginning to realise that customer service really matters as each pound spent has been harder for their customers and potential customers to earn in a continually downbeat economy.
This is evidenced by exceptional results in comparison to the rest of the retail sector from John Lewis Partnership who have been posting double digit growth in their arguably upmarket John Lewis department stores and Waitrose grocery chain.
We expect to see continued efforts from organisations to differentiate themselves from others through improved customer service – and are working with a number of utilities, financial institutions and travel businesses in the UK, Europe and Middle East to do so – over the coming months and will be keeping our eye on businesses in the fixed line and mobile telco space, where network coverage is approaching 100% and margins available in their traditional communicate mediums such as voice minutes and SMS are being squeezed by other channels, such as Skype and Twitter.
Will economic factors and a growing trend from consumers towards spending their hard earned money with organisations they like and trust – rather than those that are just the cheapest or trendiest – make 2011 the year that traditional, high quality customer service becomes normal again?
