Customer Centricity Report

Discovering what consumers really think of customer service

Summary Findings

The Dunnhumby Customer Centricity Report looks at how closely consumers feel that major UK companies and brands are meeting their needs.
It is based on a survey of 1,300 consumers and focuses on eight sectors including supermarkets, airlines, car insurance, high street banks, mobile phone operators, fixed line telecom providers and electricity companies.
It reveals the current leaders and laggards in the customer centricity stakes and highlights that an overwhelming number of companies either have yet to embark on the journey or have a long way to go.
In particular, despite having significant marketing budgets, a significant proportion of companies are failing to fulfill some of the basic tenets of doing business and marketing – identifying what customers actually want and fulfilling those needs.

Particular findings include:

A significant number of companies are undervaluing their customers and struggling to recognize the importance of being customer focused.
Over 50% of the companies in the report received a negative score for customer centricity.
Fixed line telecoms providers and electricity companies received a red card for the relevance and quality of their customer proposition.
Over two thirds of respondents felt their electricity company was unhelpful when they needed help.
Just over one third of consumers would recommend their fixed line telecoms provider to a friend.
Credit card companies were the poorest at understanding customer needs.
Over a three year period consumers experience deteriorating relationships with high street banks.
High street banks were the worst offenders for providing poor customer service and sending too much irrelevant mail.
Supermarket retailers receive the highest rating and are regarded as nearly twice as customer centric as the runner-up, the airline industry.
Supermarket retailers’ relationships with their customers improve over time.
Nationwide, Virgin Mobile, Zurich and Tesco are the leading practitioners of customer centricity.
New entrants to particular sectors can quickly win the trust of customers and usurp more established brands if they deliver highly relevant customer propositions. For example, in the insurance sector, Tesco has a strong customer ethos and its insurance business receives a top ten rating for customer centricity.