Grocery retail voted best for customer service - survey

Grocery retailers offer the best customer service, new research has found.

As part of its new Make Every Conversation Count report, FM Outsource asked 1,000 people to rate the quality of customer service delivery offered by 10 different sectors, including utilities, travel, banking, insurance, hospitality, logistics, fashion retail and grocery retail.

The grocery retail sector topped the poll, being the most likely to be rated as good or very good (50 per cent vs average of 42 per cent). In comparison, the utilities sector was most likely to be rated poor or extremely poor (25 per cent vs average of 17 per cent).

Similarly, when consumers were asked about their customer service interactions with grocery retailers in the past 12 months, respondents were most likely to say they’d had a positive or multiple positive experiences with the grocery sector (36 per cent vs an average of 30 per cent).

This in turn is having an impact on the grocery sector’s reputation, with 45 per cent of shoppers believing it has a positive reputation for customer service, the highest reputation score out of the sectors analysed.

“As far as UK consumers are concerned, grocery retailers currently offer the highest standard of customer service," said Martin Brown, CCO at FM Outsource.

“Throughout the pandemic, grocery businesses were forced to increase home deliveries and digital services. Despite this, they have managed to keep customer satisfaction high. In fact, the research found that 34 per cent of shoppers think the grocery sector has improved in recent years.

“In other research we completed earlier in the year, the grocery sector again scored highly, with the best response times to customer enquiries. The quick response times will be a significant contributor to the overall rating of grocery retailers as the best for customer service, highlighting the importance of response times to customers.

“Businesses in other sectors can learn from the success of grocery retailers and ensure that customer wait times are kept to a minimal to increase overall customer satisfaction. This can be done with the help of a professional, highly trained customer service team and the combination of the right communication channels.”