Utilities achieve leap in customer experience

Three percentage point rise makes utilities most improved sector in annual survey

The utilities sector has achieved the biggest improvement in customer experience over the last year compared to 13 other UK sectors, according to an annual study.

In the league table complied by consultancy Engine, utilities jumped from 12^th to 9^th place after the proportion of customers saying utilities are among the best sectors for service jumped from 10 per cent to 13 per cent.

“Utilities still have a lot of work to do in terms of improving customer satisfaction but they’re heading in the right direction,” cautioned Joe Heapy, co-founder of Engine.

But he said: “They’ve been better at identifying with people by devising a more coherent, meaningful and joined up customer experience as well as creating new customer-centric roles in which employees are more empowered to use their discretion rather than explicitly trying to boil interactions down to a formulaic procedure. This means they take care of customers rather than just process them, a huge distinction.” 

The sectos for customer experience overall were voted as restaurants and hotels, cited by 47 per cent and 46 per cent respectively as being best for customer experience.

Where individual companies were identified for experience focus, retail firms dominated with Amazon leading the way followed by John Lewis, M&S, Tesco and Sainsbury’s. 

Heapy concluded: “The leading sectors and companies in customer service don’t think of it as an add-on at the front line, they put as much effort into designing the customer experience as they do their actual products.”

Engine’s annual customer experience survey engaged with over 1,000 GB adults.