Good news for Telecoms & Media as it bucks the trend on CSAT

The January 2020 UK Customer Satisfaction Index (UKSI) from The Institute of Customer Service shows a mixed picture for UK firms. The average CSAT score across all sectors has dropped to 76.9 points, 0.8 points lower than in January 2019, and now stands at its lowest level since July 2015.
However, the good news is that the Telecommunications & Media sector is bucking the general trend and is the only sector in which customer satisfaction is now higher than a year ago. It’s MVNOs that continue to lead the way in customer service in our sector, with GiffGaff still reigning supreme, with a score of 82.8 and achieving 14th best UK organisation for customer service. The next highest placed organisation is another MVNO – Tesco Mobile – which scores 81.7 to snatch 27th place.
However, 5 of the 14 companies (36%) in our sector that are measured by the study improved their scores by 2 points or more, which emphasises how important experience now is for differentiation and retention. Four telecoms firms made it into the ‘most improved’ category:

  • Sky Mobile gave a stonking performance – raising its score from 73.7 in January 2019 to 78.7 – a huge 5.0 point improvement
  • EE (including T-Mobile and Orange) improved its score from 73.3 to 76.8 – up by a very respectable 3.5 points. The mobile firm is obviously having a positive effect on its parent BT which also raised its score from 67.9 to 70.9 (up 3.0)
  • The Utility Warehouse improved its score from 74.0 to 77.1 up 3.1

While the improvements are great news, before we pop the champagne it’s important to reflect that this performance is not overly tough, because we still have a lot of improving to do (average C-Sat for sector 74.8) before we get to the level of market leaders in the retail sector (average C-Sat for sector 80.3). To sober us all up – we’re still the 10th placed sector out of 13, with only public services, utilities and travel & transport worse than us; but that said, let’s celebrate small victories while we can and well done to those firms who’ve really upped their performance this year.