UKCSI: Timpson, M&S and John Lewis among top performers for customer satisfaction

 The twice-yearly landmark report by The Institute of Customer Service on the state of service across the UK shows satisfaction levels remain near their lowest level since 2015. The latest UK Customer Satisfaction Index (UKCSI), which benchmarks customer satisfaction of over 260 of the UK’s leading businesses and has run since 2008, is 76.1 (out of 100). This is almost the same level as a year ago and only 0.3 points higher than in July 2024.

The UKCSI finds that 64% of employees surveyed indicated that they spend part of their time resolving issues caused by service failings, spending an average of 4 days per month dealing with service failures or problems, an increase from 3.3 days in July 2024. Extrapolated across full-time employees in the UK economy, this suggests a monthly cost to UK organisations of £7.3 billion.

Close to one third (31%) of customers would also prefer to receive excellent service, even if it means paying more, the UKCSI has also revealed. This suggests organisations consistently achieving strong levels of customer satisfaction are much better placed than others to grow revenues by building relationships with customers for whom quality of service is an essential component of an organisation’s value proposition.

“As we enter an economically uncertain 2025, businesses should be looking to every opportunity to boost productivity and revenue”, said Jo Causon, CEO of The Institute of Customer Service. “This year’s UKCSI demonstrates a compelling case for why customer service matters to the UK economy, reflecting the clear relationship between customer satisfaction, productivity, and growth.

“Across the UK economy, service failures are costing billions a month in employees’ time and subsequent lost revenue. We can only achieve sustainable growth in the economy through long-term investment in products, services, and customer experience, as evidence shows us that organisations who consistently outperform their sector for customer satisfaction achieve stronger financial results.”

Timpson tops the table for best service again while banking and retail dominate the top 10

For individual company performance, Timpson once again scored the highest average satisfaction rating for January 2025, repeating its leading performance in the July 2024 Index, while M&S (food) comes out as the highest rated food retailer. The grocer has reported growing food volume and share value for four consecutive years, evidencing a strong return on investment from good customer service.

Four banks or building societies were ranked in the top 10, with Starling Bank, Nationwide, first direct and Monzo all featuring.

Across the service sectors more broadly, the UKCSI reveals that customers are most likely to have increased their spend because of the quality of service provided by an organisation in the Retail, Tourism and Automotive sectors. Customers are most likely to have lowered their level of spend as a result of an organisation’s customer service in the Telecommunications & Media and Transport sectors.

Across the Retail (Food) sector specifically, availability and range of products and service and friendly, helpful staff are the key aspects of service that customers want organisations to improve. Customers of Food Retailers with lower-than-average ratings for customer satisfaction tend to be much more likely than customers of highly rated organisations to highlight the importance of developing friendlier, more helpful and knowledgeable staff and having more staff available.

The UK Customer Satisfaction Index is a twice-yearly report based on 59,500 survey responses provided by more than 15,000 individual customers, representative of the UK adult population.