Living Ventures and Wagamama among the best for customer service

28th October 2010, 3:26pm

Living Ventures, John Lewis's cafes and restaurants, Wagamama, Premier Inn and Maison Blanc have been named as the five brands delivering the best customer service experiences in an industry benchmarking survey by the National Skills Academy Hospitality.

Over the past year, The National Skills Academy Hospitality has developed a unique hospitality benchmark programme to assess the customer service delivery of companies across the sector.

For the first time, this moves away from the more traditional process checks of mystery diner programmes and instead, benchmarks indicators such as the warmth, welcome, personality, staff product knowledge, training, perceived value for money and the customer's likeliness to recommend.

The scores were as follows:

Living Ventures - 90.78%
John Lewis - 86.89%
Wagamama - 83.44%
Premier Inn - 80.4%
Maison Blanc - 78.95%

David McHattie, CEO of the National Skills Academy Hospitality said: "Although Living Ventures restaurants are based in the North of England and Scotland the service they provide customers with has ensured that even in these challenging times, like for like sales are positive and growing.

"The 90.78% score Living Ventures has averaged (taken from scores across all of their outlets) is an impressive testimony to the personality, skill and value that the customer recognises and returns to experience time and time again. Through the hospitality benchmark, we continue to support them to deliver to these consistently high standards.

"We all know how important customer service is to company success but now, with this type of benchmarking data we can start to understand the top performers and provide industry with insight and support never before available. We developed the hospitality benchmark to provide customer insight and advice from experienced operators at an affordable price.

"The target individual outlets, brands and the industry must strive to reach is 90%. Only then can we be confident that the customer service offered is developing loyal customers who will act as advocates and evangelists. At that level we can also be sure that the service is world class."

A number of businesses across the UK, from small independents to multiple outlet companies are using the hospitality benchmark programme to drive better customer service and consequently business growth.

Simon Wilkinson, COO Kout Food Group said: "We are using the hospitality benchmark programme in our Maison Blanc operation and it has certainly been a key component in helping to grow the sales and profitability of the business. It also provides invaluable guest insight."

The data accrued by the hospitality benchmark covers chains and multiple site holders to independents.

To find out if you were one of the 1,200 companies assessed by the National Skills Academy Hospitality, and to gain bespoke analysis of your results from ex industry operators contact benchmark@hospitalityskillsacademy.co.uk

For more information visit www.excellencefound.co.uk/hospitalitybenchmark.aspx

Related Articles:

• 25 Mar 2011 - Lion Capital agrees to sell noodle chain wagamama
• 29 Oct 2010 - More personality needed to lead pub fight back
• 21 Oct 2010 - Young Chef Young Waiter winners announced
• 02 Aug 2010 - Five more ‘excellent’ colleges revealed by National Skills Academy Hospitality
• 08 Jul 2010 - Customer service stars working in hospitality revealed
• 08 Jun 2010 - National Skills Academy for Hospitality extends Disney Institute programme
• 06 Jan 2010 - The Mystery Dining Company partners with National Skills Academy for Hospitality

Click here to submit a comment!

Mark

30 October 2010 at 1:32am

Strange.. Gaucho always tops service for me wherever I go ... Were they in the survey?

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