How does your brand score on customer satisfaction? Does it delight or disappoint? Custommerce Service Excellence Foundation has developed a tool to measure customer experience levels across brands and categories.
Custommerce is a customer-centric forum incubated by Servion Global Solutions which specialises in customer interaction management.
The Cindex customer satisfaction index is measured using data obtained from mobile phone interviews of customers (above 18 years of age). Questions are asked on five parameters: satisfaction, loyalty, advocacy, value-for-money and expectations. Statistical analysis is then used to churn out the scores.
There are three elements to the index: an overall rating and ‘customer delight’ and ‘bottom quartile’ scores. While the customer delight score determines how the brand delighted customers, bottom quartile is an indication of what percentage of people are dissatisfied with the brand.
“Customer experience is a critical part of driving market share, growth and profits. With a rapidly growing economy and exploding consumerism, it is also a key differentiator. Therefore, it is important to measure where brands and organisations stand on this,” said Ramesh Venkateswaran, Chairman, Custommerce.
Custommerce had conducted a random survey across 8,353 respondents from 65 cities, from February to mid-August. It was across categories such as savings banks, credit card companies, lifestyle retailers, two-wheelers, airlines, telecom service providers (pre- and post-paid) and handset makers.
The high performers on customer experience were SBI (credit cards), Bank of India (among savings banks) and Hero Honda (two-wheeler category). The low performers were ICICI Bank (savings bank), Reliance (pre-paid mobile) and MTS (handsets), said V. Ravichandar, Chairman, Feedback Consulting, which is Custommerce’s partner in the Cindex venture.
“We are not passing judgements on brands. Cindex just hopes to raise the bar. It does not give out a mere number; it also tells which parameters are pulling brands down.”
The survey also revealed that customers are becoming indifferent to brands and most consumers cannot recall any great service experience from any brand.
Custommerce says it will not chase brands but hopes organisations will subscribe to the Cindex findings, which will be revised every 3-6 months.