Shoppers dissapointed by UAE customer service

Are You Being Served? a report on the UAE retail sector has found that customer service is failing to impress and consumers not getting the intelligent service they require; resulting in one in three customers who would not return to or recommend the outlet they visited.

Are You Being Served? is the inaugural UAE survey by Grass Roots and sets out to measure customer satisfaction levels based on visits by mystery shoppers. They collect information anonymously to provide an accurate picture of the retail sector - a snapshot of real life experiences.

The main findings of the report were:

UAE customers are dissatisfied due to lack of intelligent service. The survey found poor results for product knowledge and meeting customer needs. 41% of staff did not recommend the relevant product or service and 21% of the mystery shoppers did not feel staff who served them knew what they were talking about.

Initiative is sorely lacking. Retail staff are unwilling to go the extra mile to make sure the customers needs are met. 46.2% did not check that the customer had the product or information required.

Retailers are not creating customer loyalty through their service, 33.8% of shoppers said they would not return to the outlet they visited. 38.1% said they would not recommend the outlet to friends or family.

Clean outlets and smart shop floor layout where areas where retailers shone -but are those of least important to the consumer

According to Mark Spicer, General Manager of Grass Roots Middle East, retailers are finding it difficult to meet levels of service that customers are seeking "Our survey has found that UAE retailers are falling short; consumers are left disappointed by the lack of basic knowledge of the goods on sale, lack of initiative and a general failure to ascertain their needs. Customer satisfaction levels will make or break retailers in the UAE's new service economy. The retail sector is fiercely competitive now and will become more so, and it will be service that decides the winners".

Mystery shopping is a research technique that includes a series of objective measures equally applicable to different sectors.

For the UAE retail survey, Gross Roots sent out genuine customers to retail outlets across four industry sectors - automotive, fast food and coffee shops, banking and mobile phone sales - selected due to their high-growth nature in the UAE.

Mystery shoppers made 210 visits over a two month period to 106 outlets across UAE's largest urban centers; Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Sharjah and Al Ain.

The survey used two key indicators to measure retailer performance; the Performance Index which measures customer service using objective criteria and the Satisfaction Rating which is a subjective assessment of the encounter. UAE retailers scored disappointing low figures for both indicators.

The average Performance Index was calculated to be 66.4% and the average Satisfaction Rating at 67.2%.

Fast food/coffee shop outlets topped both indicators - scoring 70.3% in the Performance Index, and 72.4% in the Satisfaction Rating.

Mobile phone retailers scored the lowest marks in both categories with 55.5% and 60% respectively.

The survey showed that mystery shoppers' attitudes to the outlets they visited, in terms of their likelihood to return or recommend, were most significantly determined by competence of the service they received.

Satisfaction among those who visited mobile phone outlets was particularly low for product knowledge and for meeting customer needs. Not surprisingly, mobile phone outlets were the worst performing sector when it came to returning customers and also scoring lowest, 48%, for customers who would recommend the outlet.

Banking and automotive scored well in terms of directing customers to relevant products and having adequate product knowledge but both fell down when it came to checking that customers were satisfied with the product and information given.

The fast food/coffee shop sector performed well consistently in areas involving attitude of staff and speed of service and was the sector with the highest level of recommendation at 80%.

Mark Spicer added: "As competition both local and international increases it will be those companies that really understand what it takes to make a satisfied customer that will make it to the top. We have found roughly a third of shoppers would not return to or recommend the outlet they visited. And they don't need to - options for UAE shoppers are numerous, and increasing. The survey clearly shows those who give their staff the tools and training to ascertain customer needs will lead the way."

Grass Roots specializes in the improvement of performance by ensuring that frontline staff have the knowledge and skills to perform, are regularly measured, given the motivation to improve and recognized when they do. Grass Roots has been conducting such surveys for nearly three decades and brings to the UAE over 20 years mystery shopping experience gathered in UK, Europe and US.