Kuwait customer satisfaction index up 2% in 2012 vs. 2011, Service Hero survey reveals

The increase was led by satisfaction growth in 13 of the 15 industry monitored categories and a turn-around in the quality of service offered by mobile operators, ISPs, and car service providers, said Service Hero, the operators of the survey and publishers of the annual Service Hero Customer Satisfaction Index (SHCSI).

The SHCSI, now in its third year, is Kuwait's only customer satisfaction indicator and derives its data from a 100%, voter-based survey that is solicited in the fourth quarter of every year. The latest survey ran online from October 1 and December 31 of 2012.

Service Hero President Ms. Faten Abu-Ghazaleh said, "These results reflect the start of a major shift in Kuwait, as it shows that companies have started to listen to their customers and taken the first steps in making changes for a better customer satisfaction experience. This is especially evident for the three bottom-scoring industries on the index, as they have all grown the most in comparison with the rest of the industries."

Though the three industry categories that led the SHCSI improvement were and continue to be the lowest scoring industry categories in customer satisfaction for residents in Kuwait, they have also been the highest growth gainers with 9%, 6%, and 5% in car service, ISPs, and mobile operators, respectively, for the last three years.

Key results:

• Car service industry shows the most improvement, scoring 7.45 points, an increase of 9% since 2010.

• Mobile operators and car service remain the lowest service providers in Kuwait since 2010 and health clubs, a new industry category, ranked third worst at 7.62.

• Customers are most vocal about casual dining, fast food, and ISPs, receiving the highest number of assessments.

• Strong improvement for companies as customer expectations increased in 13 out of 17 industry categories in 2012, compared to three out of 15 categories in 2010.

This year's expected versus actual results:

The survey asked customers to first note their expected experience level for a product or service and then rate their actual experience in the same product or service. The results were then analyzed on that basis.

Expected satisfaction scores were the highest in 2010 at 7.81 compared to 7.75 in 2012, with a gap of 0.12 points. The categories that exceed customer expectations the most are casual dining, home furniture and Islamic banks. The industry categories falling below customer expectations are mobile operators, car service, health clubs, and fast foods.

Abu Ghazaleh said, "Expectation scores increase as service quality increases, and the positive gap means positive scoring industry categories have improved their services to exceed customer expectations. This positive trend will continue if the services continue to improve and customer expectations continue to be met. Once companies drop their standards, customer expectations will drop, leading to a negative score between their expected and actual assessments."

The SHCSI is based on eight major service dimensions that include staff behavior, quality of the product or service, speed, reliability, location, value for money, website, and call center. The dimensions were measured by customers across 17 different industry categories, and they are: cafes, casual dining, fine dining, fast food, clothes, home furniture, regional Arab airlines, retail banks, Islamic banks, new car dealers, car service, electronics, hospitals, mobile phone operators, ISPs, supermarkets, as well as health clubs which was added to the industry categories for the first time this year.

Quality monitoring and assessment:

Service Hero, which launched the first customer service satisfaction index SHCSI in Kuwait in 2010, measures customer satisfaction based on assessments by customers themselves. This year more than 14,000 real customers ranked the customer services they were receiving for around 400 companies across 17 industry categories in the online survey. Assessments were vetted out to close to 10,000 after data quality checks were conducted.

Service Hero has put security measures to ensure authenticity and data integrity with a 95% confidence level and an error margin of only plus or minus five, allocating a minimum number of votes per category based on Kuwait's population and category population. The index follows international standards of market research and implements the research protocols of the European Society for Opinion and Market Research (ESOMAR).

Service Hero, licensed and operated by Khayal Consultants, has recruited an Advisory Council comprising of four academic institutions as well as leading business professionals. As a neutral panel of experts, their function is to supervise the assessment and results to ensure fair and empirical findings. The Advisory Council of academic sponsors and independent members this year includes: Dr. Carol Ross of the American University of Kuwait, Mohammad Al-Bader of the Australian College of Kuwait, Dr. Hassan El-Sady of the Gulf Institute of Science and Technology, Dr. Nabil El-Hilali of Kuwait Mastricht Business School, Abdulmajeed Al Shatti, ex- Chairman of the Commercial Bank of Kuwait, Dr. Reinhold Leichtfuss Senior Partner and Managing Director of Boston Consulting Group, Nauman Sehgal, Chief Operating Officer of Noor Investment Company, and Yann Pavie, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of GulfMerger.

Service Hero will be announcing the top performing companies as ranked by customers in an awards ceremony next month. During the event, Kuwait's best companies in customer service as voted by customers will be revealed and awarded.