Service Hero Records a 1.6% Growth in its Annual Customer Satisfaction Index for the UAE and Announces Category Leaders

Overall country winners for UAE: 1st place – Emirates Airline, 2^nd place – Apple, 3^rd place -Honda

Kuwait, February, 2019: Service Hero, the Kuwait based and the region’s only consumer powered customer satisfaction index, announced the list of top performing companies across the UAE, based on its end of year 2018 customer service index. It also announced a 1.6% increase in overall customers satisfaction, since the same time in 2017. The results were based on a total of 36,839 records collected out of which 29,057 met the strict validation criteria to ensure sample integrity and rigor.
The overall country winners of the Service Hero 2018 Award for Highest Customer Satisfaction for the UAE are: 1^st place – Emirates Airline, 2^nd place – Apple and 3^rdplace – Honda.

The table below highlights the winner from each industry category, as announced by Service Hero:

The winning UAE companies were identified after a rigorous data authentication protocol was conducted for a total of 36,839 assessments that were collected online as well as via phone surveys, of which 29,057 were validated.

 
The Consumers’ assessments of private companies were held across 14 industry categories. These include cafés, casual dining, fast food, new car sale, car service, clothes, electronics, home furniture, retail banks, Islamic Banks, mobile operators, private hospitals, airlines, and supermarkets.

Faten Abu-Ghazaleh, Service Hero President, commented on the developments marked by the index in 2018. Abu-Ghazaleh said: “We concluded 2018 with a 29% increase in the total number of collected assessments, and witnessed over 300,000 unique website visitors. The two main pages visited most by consumers were the Scoreboard for an industry category and the Brand Information pages, where consumer reviews and the star rating for brands are displayed. These are two major indicators of consumers’ interest in a neutral and credible platform that can make their voices heard, and ultimately, make a change in the level of service they receive on a daily basis.”

The CSI research showed that 13 categories had higher Overall Satisfaction scores in 2018 than they did in 2017, which are Car Service, Retail Banks, Islamic Banks, New Car Sales, Casual Dining, Private Hospitals, Home Furniture, Cafes, Airlines, Mobile Operators, Supermarkets, Clothes, and Electronics. The three categories that improved the most were Car Service, Retail Banks, and Islamic Banks, with Overall Satisfaction scores 5.9%, 4.5%, and 3.9% higher, respectively. Furthermore; Fast Food was the only category that had recorded a lower Overall Satisfaction score in 2018 than that in 2017, witnessing a 3.3% decrease.

“The increase in overall customer satisfaction that we see every year in the UAE is directly related to the nation’s keen interest in reinforcing the ‘Happiness and Wellbeing’ strategy across its different sectors. With this strategy, companies from both the private and public sector are urged to look into means of developing their performance levels in terms of service excellence, and ensuring that they deliver a service of high standards that pleases the consumer. This is an overarching strategy that depicts the importance of leading an internal culture of excellence, which will reflect effortlessly at the end of the day, on the quality of the service provided”.

The table below shows the actual satisfaction levels for each category for 2018:

 
Service Hero adheres to ESOMAR principles (the European society of opinion and market research) and is overseen by an independent Advisory Council. The Advisory Council includes the Director of Research from the American Customer Satisfaction Index as well as academic and independent members from leading private universities in Kuwait and the UAE and established companies, such as the Boston Consulting Group, and Noor Investment Co.