Brands With Local Presence Top The Customer Experience Rankings

The CX Company is an Irish-based company that helps businesses build better relationships with their customers. Through 'customer experience' training, mystery shopping, and other methods, the CX Company identifies how customer service can be improved and helps put the company into consumers' shoes.

From Deliveroo to An Post, their yearly report (published every December) examines how successful Irish-operating businesses were at connecting meaningfully with their customers. 

According to their 2020 report, here are the Top 10 brands with the best staff:

1. Credit unions
2. Specsavers
3. Shaws
4. M&S
5. An Post
6. FBD
7. Supervalu
8. Carraig Donn
9. Homevalue
10. Allcare

The report gives the following reasons as to why these brands came out on top:

'There are numerous examples of how staff in these companies went the extra mile during COVID-19, checking up on customers to make sure they were safe, delivering items to customers who were cocooning and providing a reassuring presence in the community. Many staff took risks and put themselves on the line to help their customers.'

Most of these franchises are firmly rooted in our communities. They employ locally and invest themselves heavily in local interests, which in turn makes more people want to work or do business with them. 

CXi also found that consumers are more likely to be drawn to a business by word-of-mouth rather than by elaborate sales and marketing campaigns. That's great news for local businesses who don't have the cash to splash on billboards or radio ads; if you create an atmosphere that the customer loves, they'll be sure to tell their friends and family about it. 

Irish Credit Union and An Post are the only two brands to have maintained a Top 10 position since the survey began in 2015, according to CXi

What keeps customers coming back?

When we put the question of what makes a successful business to participants of our Local Business Spotlight series, one answer always comes out on top: building meaningful relationships with your customers. 

This rings especially true during a time when contact with other community members is hard to come by. The businesses that are committed to nurturing their relationships with customers, despite the physical distance, are the ones that continue to thrive despite their economic hardship.  

In short, the most recent report from CXi shows that brands with a strong community presence fare better than those without. Customers recognise and appreciate businesses that 'have their best interests at heart.' Unfortunately, those businesses (primarily SMEs) have suffered far more than the likes of Tesco or Starbucks, but one can take comfort in the fact that they remain customer favourites.