Are You Being Served Survey 2008
Grass Roots takes great pride in keeping ahead of the latest trends in customer service and brand experience. In an effort to engage with our various audiences, and because we feel passionate about keeping excellence in customer service at the top of our agenda for all industries operating in the arena, we conducted a nationwide mystery shopping measurement survey during March 2008 to understand the general service levels and customer experience with related service and brands in major Irish cities and across a wide range of industry sectors. Grass Roots have been conducting such surveys for nearly three decades using mystery shoppers to help assess service levels and standards.
When judged on overall performance against our international cousins USA – UK – Germany – Netherlands – Spain – India – France - UAE, Ireland came in well at number 4.
The USA leads the pack but Ireland was only 2% behind scoring 78% and an increase of 3.2% on the 2007 results. Although there is still work to be done in many sectors, this is encouraging growth and defiantly in the right direction for most industries.
But service levels were not consistent, from city to city and from industry sector to industry sector, service seemed a bit of a lottery. In key areas such as “Would you return” and “Would you recommend” Ireland only managed to gain 7th place and a significant drop from 2007 (3% and 5.5% respectively).
Companies in Ireland spent in excess of €2.5 billion in 2007 trying to attract customers to their product and stores. Our survey indicated that only one in four Irish customers were unwilling to repeat these visits or recommend their experience, based on the service they received.
This poor service effectively negates a quarter of companies advertising and marketing expenditure.
By industry sector, Financial services lead the way in Ireland at 88.5% with Pharmaceutical snapping at their heels at 86.25%. But most worrying were the performance of Retail at only 58.17% and Food Service at 76%.
In terms of City performance Limerick outshone the rest at 85.2% with our nation’s capital Dublin, bringing up the rear at 72.22%. Clearly Dublin has some catching up to do.
In industries where sometimes the only thing that differentiates their products or services from their competitors is customer service and standards, then clearly there are sectors that have some work to do. Areas for concern in these sectors seem to be people based, pointing to an impression of lack of interest or knowledge on the sales assistants behalf in supplying a standard of service to customers in this sector that they have come to expect and indeed demand. This in turn leads to an overall poor impression, hence the poor sector scores. It is vital in these areas that any industry is fully aware of the service being given to its customers in their given target market and do not rely on remote or subjective information.
We would conclude that this was a better result this year from Ireland, but as a country that welcomes the world to its shores, any business involved in customer facing activity needs to capture those customers imaginations, nourish their local identity, create a mandate to delight them with excellent service and inspire them to return.