Kuwait December 4, 2010: Service Hero's 2010 Customer Satisfaction Index for Kuwait that was surveyed in October with a wide sample population of 8,700 votes in Kuwait showed for the first time the strengths challenges of Kuwait's leading service-based industries as identified by Kuwait's consumers.

The survey-based index revealed that customers were consistently being disappointed by the service offered by internet service providers (ISPs), telecoms, and car service centers.  On the other hand, customers were much satisfied with the leisure-based sectors, specifically cafes, casual dining, and fine dining - all three of which measured very close to their customers' expectations.

Service Hero President, Ms. Faten Abu-Ghazaleh said: "What we see is that some of the biggest industry categories in the economy seem to be performing considerably lower than consumers' expectations of them. Consumers have used the Service Hero platform to voice their dissatisfaction as well as their satisfaction with key industries. For example, technology-based industries as well as some that are skill-intensive have the lowest satisfaction levels. The challenge in these categories is learning what service dimension (e.g. is it speed, reliability or staff) is the one that pull the scores down."



The surveyed sectors by consumers were cafes, casual dining, fine dining, clothes retail, home furniture, local airlines, retail banks, new car sales, Islamic banks, fast food, electronics, hospitals, internet service providers (ISPs), car service centers, and mobile phone operators. Customer satisfaction within these sectors was tracked by asking by consumers who have been repeatedly exposed to these sectors to score their service offering based on six different service standards dimensions. 

The dimensions were service reliability, speed, product quality, value for money, location of offering, and staff quality.  Additionally, consumers were also asked to rate the call center offering and website in the sectors that depend on these two consumer and sales channels.  The sectors that included these additional dimensions were airlines, mobile operators, ISP's, retail banks, and Islamic banks were also scored their, which form an integral part of their consumer offering.





Figure 1 Source Service Hero Customer Satisfaction Index 2010, scores out of 10, the best score is 10.

Covering 15 sectors, the Service Hero 2010 Customer Satisfaction Index for Kuwait-level data is available for free. Academic institutions, research institutions, and governmental and non-governmental organizations may request their free copy of the 50-page in-depth report on ServiceHero.com.  Service Hero will be announcing top performing companies as ranked by customers in an awards ceremony in January.  During the event, Kuwait's best companies in customer service as voted on by customers will be revealed and awarded.

**Enclosed: Service Hero Customer Satisfaction Index - Category Rank

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About Service Hero:
Founded with a mission to create a people-driven platform for voting on service quality, Service Hero provides organizations with the knowledge and tools needed to track and improve performance for the benefit of customers.  Service Hero is a unique concept solely focused on collecting the voice of customers on service standards and creating a list of service providers ranked by category.  Service Hero was established by a team of professionals keen on identifying companies that are service leaders in their market. This team is backed by an Independent Advisory Council which assures results that are impartial, objective and accurately reflect people's preference. Our main goal is to measure the satisfaction level in the market by real consumers in order to help and empower companies to improve their service levels.

The Service Hero Customer Satisfaction Survey is overseen by an Advisory Council comprising an academic institution as well as leading business professionals. As a neutral panel of experts, their function is to supervise the assessment to ensure fair and empirical findings.  Members include: Abdulmajeed Al Shatti, ex-Chairman of the Board and Managing Director of the Commercial Bank of Kuwait, Dr. Carol Ross, Dean of Student Affairs, American University of Kuwait, Dr. Reinhold Leichtfuss, Senior Partner and Managing Director of the Boston Consulting Group, Nauman Sehgal, COO at Noor Financial Investment, and Yann Pavie, CEO of Gulf Merger.

To know more about Service Hero, go to http://www.servicehero.com.

About Khayal Consultants:
Established in 1996, Khayal Consultants is a business communications consulting firm providing market research, surveys, website design and other marketing communication services.  Over the past 14 years, Khayal Consultants has helped some of Kuwait's leading organizations better connect, understand, and communicate with their stakeholders. 

To know more about Khayal Consulting, go to http://www.khayal.com.

Media may contact:
Fawaz Al Sirri
+965 97187345
fawaz@bensirri.com

© Press Release 2010