Brand champions or brand saboteurs?

New Research By NKD Reveals Cost Of Bad Service On Brands

Standards of customer service have a profound effect on consumers’ overall perceptions of brands and organisations, according to new research by employee engagement agency, NKD Group.

The research, called “Service or Sabotage?”, provides strong evidence that people judge the quality of brands and products on the quality of personal encounters with front line employees – and that these interactions directly affect sales.

NKD’s study, conducted amongst a representative sample of 1,058 consumers, claims that businesses with poor customer-facing employees are effectively employing ‘brand saboteurs’, destroying hard-won reputations that marketers and their agencies are striving to build.
 

The damage to brands

The results revealed that nearly three quarters (73%) of consumers think worse of an organisation or brand when they encounter unhelpful service. A similar number (74%) will always choose not to use that organisation or brand again when there is a choice.

In addition 74% of respondents who receive bad service will tell someone else about their bad experience.

Bad service also has a direct impact on consumer perceptions of product quality. The research found that over half (56%) of respondents who experience bad service will wonder if the company is putting as little care and thought into their products as they do their customer service.

Bad service will also impact negatively on consumers’ perceptions of the company’s recruitment, training and management of its people.
 

Good service builds brands

By contrast, the benefits to the brand of helpful customer-facing employees are impressive. 84% of respondents reported that they think better of a brand or organisation if they experience good service and 59% reported that helpful employees led them to expect that the product or service would also be good.

Nearly three quarters of people (73%) will choose to return to a brand or organisation over a competitor if the experience good service and over three quarters (77%) will discuss good experiences with friends or family.

“Customer-facing employees are the living embodiment of a brand or organisation,” says Sue Stoneman, Managing Director of NKD. “They are walking, talking advertisements for the company. Organisations neglect their investment in service at their peril because, as our research shows, an investment in a brand champion over a brand saboteur impacts directly on future business results.”
 

British bugbears

The survey also reveals that Britain’s top service bugbear is chatting on the phone or to colleagues when serving customers, cited as annoying customer by 73% of respondent. The results also show that, at heart, British consumers have simple, old-fashioned values, rating politeness (cited by 70%) and helpfulness (cited by 66%) above all other attributes.
 

The best and worst service brands

In “Service or Sabotage?” NKD asked respondents to assess customer-facing employees in three service-oriented sectors: food service, travel and retail. The respondents replied both in real terms – from good to bad – but also, and more powerfully in light of the degree to which customer-service expectations are aligned with price – in terms of the degree to which brands exceeded or fell short of their expectations.

Virgin Atlantic Airways and John Lewis led the way in employee excellence and managed to exceed the expectations of 29% and 26% of customers respectively. At the other end of the spectrum the fast-food outlets – McDonalds, Burger King and KFC vied to match each other’s customer disappointment with McDonalds the narrow looser with over 57% of respondents saying service fell short of their expectations. In retail chains, half of respondents reported that service at Currys/Dixons fell short of expectations and in travel 38% of Ryanair customers found service fell below their expectations.

“The research reveals that British consumers are relatively easy to please. A smile and some sincerity go a long way,” says Stoneman. “This makes it all the more surprising that so many companies continue to get it wrong. Possibly the heart of the problem lies in the fact the employees are often not emotionally engaged with the promises a brand or organisation makes externally. Employees are not choosing to be part of the brand or organisation they work for. It is time UK companies woke up to the reputational and financial damage this is causing.”