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Service Hero announces its six-month index results
UAE National Customer Satisfaction index improves 2 points and scores 77.7
Customers earn badges as they engage on the customer satisfaction index platform
Service Hero introduces the Culture of Excellence Index, a specially designed tool to assess a company's focus on service
Home Furniture, Electronics and Supermarkets are the best performing sectors
Dubai, UAE – Service Hero, the region’s only consumer powered customer satisfaction index, revealed that satisfaction in the UAE is rising with almost 2 points growth from last annual results. This announcement came as the company released the results of its six months “Customer Satisfaction Index” for the UAE, which scored a total of 77.7 satisfaction rate.
For this report, the Service Hero Index collected 3806 authenticated consumer voices, in the UAE, covering 14 different business sectors. The increase occurs as data shows a strong improvement in some sectors, where Home Furniture topped the list with an 83.7 satisfaction score out of 100 maximum points, while Mobile Operators stayed at the bottom with a poor 64.6 satisfaction score, followed by retails banks with 71.2 scoring out of 100 points. Other industries that performed well were Electronics, Supermarkets and Casual dining.
“Service Hero is designed to offer affordable tools to observe, document and measure satisfying internal and external customer needs so that companies can identify priorities, set standards and execute plans for sustainable performance improvement. The UAE market offers each consumer an array of choices, and as customers express their demands and needs this will ultimately help build longstanding relationships of value that transcend people's lives to a better place.” Says Faten Abu-Ghazaleh, President and Founder of Service Hero.
The mid-year report also noticed that some sectors have witnessed a notable increase in customer satisfaction, notably Islamic Banks with 5.5 points, followed by Home Furniture with 4.5 and Supermarkets with 3.8 points, whereas Mobile Operators have decreased by 0.9 points.
Dimensions
While customer satisfaction has increased in general, Value for Money and Call Center both increased slightly but are still at the bottom of the 8 dimensions of service index. However, Physical Location (attractiveness, convenience, parking access and timings), Reliability and Staff received a high rating. Compared to the 2016 index, an improvement has been noticed in all service attributes. Whilst the Call Center has improved the most by 2.6 points, Website has only improved by one point.
Demographics
In line with last year’s results, the index shows that customer expectations and satisfactions towards the services they received is related to how sophisticated those customers are. The report finds that the higher the education is, the harder customers are pleased with services they receive, which also affects their loyalty with brands. It has also been noted that highly educated customers holding a Masters or Ph.D degree have dropped 4% in NPS scores since last year.
Faten Abu-Ghazaleh, President of Service Hero explains “Customers vary in both their expectations and satisfaction of the service they receive. The more exposed and sophisticated a customer is, the more likely they will be intolerant of poor service, and the harder it is to please them. Companies need to understand the expectations and satisfaction levels of all their customer segments in order to better satisfy them.”
In terms of demographics, Arab expats continue to be the least satisfied while Emiratis are most satisfied, noting that satisfaction has mostly increased with those aged above 50.
Customer Badges
In order to encourage and acknowledge repeat and valuable customers feedback, Service Hero introduced customer badges which they can earn based on their engagement and participation. As soon as they register and rate brands’ services, consumers get a member badge, then they can earn various badges based on their activities, depth of opinions and comments, and accordingly they can become Service Experts, Ambassadors, and finally Influencers. Responsive companies that seem to listen and respond to feedback would earn an “Engaged” badge.
The Culture of Excellence Index
In addition to its national customer satisfaction index, Service Hero recently announced the introduction of “the Culture of Excellence Index”, a tool specially designed to assess a company’s focus on service.
“We believe that companies have the best intentions when it comes to delivering excellence to their customers, but in a competitive market the challenges remain in the pressures they face which makes many companies lose focus.” Notices Faten.
Continues Abu-Ghazaleh “working on rating companies over the years we notice that, while they understand service excellence is important, few know exactly what to do to enable it internally.” The new index measures how organized, clear and aligned a company is in providing excellent service, and it is currently being used by leading retail clients in Kuwait and the UAE. The Culture of Excellence Index aims to determine what are the steps needed to drive a culture of excellence and align everything around excellence. Following that, companies can also opt in to a brief engagement with Service Hero on turning the culture around.
How the Customer Satisfaction Index works
The Service Hero Customer Satisfaction Index is an online survey where respondents vote directly on www.servicehero.com and rate the quality of service they receive in private sector companies. The index measures 8 key service attributes on a 10-point rating scale on a before and after basis. Scores are then converted using an algorithm to a 100 point system to make reporting the scores easier to understand. The key focuses are: Staff Attitude, Speed, Location, Value, Reliability, Product Quality, Call Center, Website, comparison to an ideal, and likelihood to recommend. Based on this 100% customer derived input, the index computes overall scores for each company based on all the attributes. It measures them across key industry categories including Mobile Operators, Electronics, Furniture, Banking (both Islamic and conventional), Private Hospitals, Automotive (both new car purchase and car service), Restaurants (casual dining, fast food, and cafes) Airlines and Grocery Stores, which are currently included for the UAE. Amongst these industry categories are 350 UAE based brands which are automatically prelisted by the Service Hero index for their customers to rate their experiences with them.
Service Hero is the regional partner with the respected American Customer Satisfaction Index and also follows the research protocols of ESOMAR (European Society for Opinion and Market Research) to ensure adherence to international market research standards.
About Service Hero
Service Hero adheres to ESOMAR principles (the European Society of Opinion & Market Research). It aims to collect a robust and rigorous sample exceeding 10,000 validated assessments that reflect key demographic groups. Assessments are predominantly collected online asking 24 questions using a 10-point scale, and it deploys key processes before reporting validated and authenticated data to ensure its integrity. All scores are vetted by the well-respected American Customer Satisfaction Index, who is Service Hero’s partner in the Arab world. Results are also overseen by an independent Advisory Council in each country. In the UAE advisors include the American Customer Satisfaction Index, the Institute of Social & Economic Research of Zayed University, and Abu-Dhabi University. In Kuwait advisors include the American University of Kuwait, Gulf University of Science & Technology, the Australian College of Kuwait, and the Kuwait Community College as well as neutral professionals from leading organizations, including, the Boston Consulting Group, and Noor Investment Co.
© Press Release 2017
