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Utilities ‘have more customer experience bosses than retail’

Utilities have a greater prevalence of management with customer experience roles than leading retail companies according to findings by website developer Mando.

Of six customer-facing sectors studied in Mando’s research, the highest incidence of management or senior management posts with customer experience in the job title was in banking where it was found in 79 per cent of the companies surveyed. Telecoms was close behind at 78 per cent followed by utilities at 72 per cent.

However utilities had one of the lowest weightings of customer experience responsibility at board level. In its report Mando said: “This [utilities’] current lack of board-level strategic focus is surprising given the challenges facing an industry with a less than glowing reputation amongst the public.”

Strategic director at Mando, Jonathan Seal, said: “The regulator encourages competition in the utilities sector and price is always a key consideration for customers. But our report shows that the sector is also aware of the competitive advantage to be gained from getting the customer experience right.”

Mando looked at 20 companies in each sector surveyed. It found that conventional and online retailers were “surprisingly” the laggards in their focus of management responsibility on customer experience.