Roy Morgan announces winners of the 2017 NZ Customer Satisfaction Awards

Of the 22 companies winning an award nearly half (10) have emerged victorious for the first time in the awards’ seven year history. A further seven have successfully defended their victory while there are five former winners that have returned to the winner’s circle in 2017 after coming up short in recent years.

International Airline of the Year Emirates is the ‘Best of the Best’ in 2017 coming out on top of all other 21 category winners in 2017 with the highest Customer Satisfaction of any company operating in NZ.

Emirates came in just ahead of Car Manufacturer of the Year Holden, Handset Provider of the Year Apple and Quick Service Restaurant of the Year Burger Fuel – see more below on this prestigious award.

Top 10 Roy Morgan Customer Satisfaction Award Winners 2017 – ‘Best of the Best’

Source: Roy Morgan Single Source (New Zealand). An average of 12,000 New Zealanders per 12 month period aged 14+ interviewed during the 12 months to March 2017, June 2017, September 2017 and December 2017.

Although none could match Emirates for Customer Satisfaction in 2017 three companies have an unblemished record in the Annual Awards winning every award since the inaugural awards in 2011.

A special congratulations need to be extended for six-time Handset Provider of the Year Apple, six-time Domestic Airline of the Year Air New Zealand and six-time Major Bank of the Year Kiwibank Group – all three have won every annual award since 2011 in their respective categories.

The Annual New Zealand Customer Satisfaction Awards are based on 12 months of data from Roy Morgan’s Consumer Single Source Survey.

New Zealand Customer Satisfaction Awards 2017 – 22 Winners

Automotive

Finance

Retail

Telecommunications

Travel and Tourism

Utilities

The seven companies to consolidate their victories in 2015/16 include the three six-time winners mentioned above as well as Home Phone Provider of the Year Trustpower and Quick Service Restaurant of the Year Burger Fuel which both have four consecutive victories in their respective categories (2013-17), as well as Coffee Store of the Year Robert Harris Café (2014-17) and Hardware Store of the Year Mitre 10 (2015-17).

There were first time winners in a majority of the eleven retail categories including Supercheap Auto (Automotive Store of the Year), Postie (Clothing Store of the Year), Farmers (Department Store of the Year), Smiths City (Furniture/Electrical Store of the Year), Stirling Sports (Sports Store of the Year) and Number One Shoes (Shoe Store of the Year).

Other first time winners in their respective categories included Holden (Car Manufacturer of the Year), Skinny Mobile (Mobile Service Provider of the Year), Trustpower (Main Home Internet Service Provider of the Year) and Kiwibank Group as the Financial Institution of the Year to go with its long winning streak as Major Bank of the Year.

Michele Levine, CEO Roy Morgan, says the Roy Morgan Customer Satisfaction Awards highlight the New Zealand companies that consistently deliver a superior level of customer service that retains existing customers and attracts new ones:

“To keep customers businesses need their satisfaction, engagement, loyalty, advocacy and trust. Too often it can go wrong for businesses – making those that do care about satisfying their customers all the more special and worthy of celebration.

“Now in their seventh year, the Roy Morgan Customer Satisfaction Awards continue to be the benchmark by which customer satisfaction is measured in New Zealand, Australia and Indonesia. Reliable, accurate and totally objective, the New Zealand awards reflect the experiences of some 12,000 consumers, as aggregated in our Single Source survey over 12 months.

“Today’s annual awards recognise 22 businesses as providing the best customer satisfaction to their customers across a wide variety of categories ranging from large multinational businesses such as Apple, Emirates and Holden (General Motors) down to successful Kiwi owned local businesses including such as Pak’n Save, Robert Harris Café, Smiths City and Trustpower.

“Perhaps the best indication of the competitiveness of the New Zealand’s marketplace is to be found in the retail categories. More than half of the retail winners (6 of 11) are first time winners including Clothing Store Postie, Department Store Farmers and Sports Store Stirling Sports.

“These businesses have clearly placed a strong emphasis on improving customer service in recent years and the results of this focus are starting to bear fruit with their victories in the annual awards.

“Special congratulations to Emirates which has returned to the winner’s circle as New Zealand’s International Airline of the Year for the first time since three consecutive victories in 2012-14 and today is named as New Zealand’s ‘Best of the Best’ for Customer Service ahead of all comers.

“Congratulations to this year’s winners: your commitment has clearly been recognised and appreciated by your customers. Keep up the excellent work!”

The Roy Morgan New Zealand Customer Satisfaction Awards highlight the winners but this is only the tip of the iceberg. Roy Morgan tracks customer satisfaction, engagement, loyalty and advocacy across a wide range of industries and brands. This data can be analysed by month for your brand and importantly your competitive set.

Visit the Roy Morgan Customer Satisfaction Awards website. This website monitors the ongoing movements in Customer Satisfaction for many businesses across different industries.

customersatisfactionawards.com

How Roy Morgan scores Customer Satisfaction

What constitutes satisfaction?

For each product or service Roy Morgan asks customers to rate that product or service on a scale of: ‘very satisfied’, ‘fairly satisfied’, ‘neither satisfied nor dissatisfied’, ‘fairly dissatisfied’ and ‘very dissatisfied’ or ‘completely satisfied’, ‘somewhat satisfied’, ‘neither satisfied nor dissatisfied’, ‘not very satisfied’ and ‘not at all satisfied’. We combine those that were ‘fairly satisfied’ and ‘very satisfied’ and calculate this as a percentage of total customers. For every category only customers of that product or service are included.

Collection of satisfaction ratings

Roy Morgan has over 75 years’ experience in collecting objective, independent information on consumers. We conduct New Zealand’s largest continuous nationwide single source survey, conducting approximately 7,000 interviews with consumers across New Zealand every year. Customer Satisfaction ratings are collected as a part of these surveys. For more information on how we collect our data, please view the Single Source fact sheet.

Time periods

Roy Morgan continuously monitors customer satisfaction throughout the year. We use cumulative rolling monthly averages to obtain a large enough sample so that smaller or niche brands can be monitored alongside larger ones. Current time periods are determined by each industry and the businesses within that industry; these are generally six or 12 month rolling averages. The specific time periods for the Roy Morgan Customer Satisfaction Awards are published with the results.

Sample sizes

To ensure accuracy in our monitoring Roy Morgan requires that organisations must have a sample of at least 100 customers from Roy Morgan’s Single Source survey that have used the products or service of that organisation in any given rolling period. Those sample sizes are published with results.