Customer service ratings for utilities jump up 3%

The proportion of customers saying utility firms offer the best service across 14 different sectors has jumped from 10% to 13% in the last year. That’s according to a new survey of 1,025 members of […]

The proportion of customers saying utility firms offer the best service across 14 different sectors has jumped from 10% to 13% in the last year.

That’s according to a new survey of 1,025 members of the public conducted by service design consultancy Engine, which has seen utilities rise from twelfth to ninth place in terms of customer satisfaction.

This 3% rise was the biggest positive change observed, narrowly ahead of the leisure industry, which saw a 2.8% increase.

However, 37% of people still voted utilities as among the worst sectors for dealing with complaints, beaten only by public transport and trains at 38%.

Two-thirds of the public say quality of service is the most important factor in choosing a supplier, followed by price, which was favoured by 31% and convenience with only 4% of the vote.

Restaurants (47%) and hotels (46%) are currently seen as the best overall sectors for service.

Joe Heapy, Co-Founder of Engine, said: “Utilities still have a lot of work to do in terms of improving customer satisfaction but they’re heading in the right direction.

“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.”

He added the three main features customers expect across all  the businesses they deal with are honesty, efficiency and reliability.

Energy suppliers lost more than £5.2 billion last year as poor service led customers to switch to rival firms.

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