Marketing consultancy dunnhumby has been investigating consumer attitudes towards customer service. Mobile operators fare better than fixed-line providers, but neither cover themselves in glory.

The research ranked 58 brands in eight market sectors according to how ‘customer-centric’ consumers believe them to be – mobile phone operators, fixed line telecom providers, electricity suppliers, airlines, supermarkets, car insurers, credit card providers, and high street banks.

Each was given a positive or negative score on five criteria – good staff; good customer service; accessibility; relevant marketing; and the idea that “they understand and value me”. Companies scoring zero or above are defined as “customer centric”, while companies scoring negatively are “customer-distant”.

The mobile sector came fifth out of the eight sectors. Interestingly, individual operators occupy positions at both extremes of the customer-centric/customer-distant spectrum. Virgin Mobile was found to be the second most customer-focused company of all the organisations surveyed, achieving a rating of 0.17 (Nationwide was top with 0.26). 3, by contrast, was second to bottom in the list (only NTL was worse).

Customer-focussed or not?
Supplier Virgin Mobile _ Score +0.17   Rank 2
Supplier O2 _ Score 0   Rank 26
Supplier Orange _ Score -0.02   Rank 28
Supplier T Mobile _ Score -0.03   Rank 30
Supplier Vodafone _ Score -0.04   Rank 38
Supplier 3_ Score -0.26   Rank 57