Andrew Wiseman reviews the latest UKCSI retail results, and wonders why the focus doesn’t move beyond satisfaction.
When my Retail Gazette daily newsletter dropped this morning, one of the main headlines was that John Lewis has topped the UK customer satisfaction rankings again. Never Knowingly Undersold and all that. Cue the headlines, the applause, the LinkedIn congratulations and self-congratulations.
But is it a moment to get out the best champers? Or just one to get the everyday Prosecco out for?
Don’t get me wrong, being the retailer that customers are most satisfied with is great. But as a solitary measure of customer experience? Incomplete. Misleading. It creates the illusion that if people say they’re satisfied, the brand is safe. That’s not how loyalty works.
Satisfaction is a nice number, but it doesn’t tell you what customers will do next.
What satisfaction scores actually measure
Most customer satisfaction surveys capture a moment in time. They measure how people feel about a recent experience. That’s useful. But it’s limited.
They don’t tell us how often people choose the brand. They don’t reveal whether a customer recommends the brand to others. They don’t uncover how integrated the brand is in someone’s routine.
People can say they’re satisfied and still drift. They can feel fine about a shop or service and still go elsewhere the next time. Or recommend something completely different.
The measurement of loyalty needs to be more than a feeling. It needs to reflect decisions and behaviour.
Frequency matters
Imagine someone says they’re satisfied with a supermarket, but only go there once a month for bits and pieces. Compare that with someone who shops there every week, across food, clothing and homeware.
Both might rate their satisfaction the same. But their value to the brand is completely different.
Satisfaction doesn’t distinguish between those two. It treats everyone equally. Which means it doesn’t help you understand where your relationship is strong, or where it’s fading.
That’s why we focus on frequency and depth of relationship when building customer experience programmes. It’s also why we consider Category Entry Points or missions when asking how consumers are using brands.
Emotion and trust shape loyalty
Loyalty is much more than a simple box tick. It’s built from a mix of rational and emotional factors.
When we ask people how they feel about a brand, we hear words like trusted, reliable, easy, enjoyable. They seldom say “satisfied”. They explain why customers come back, and why they talk about the brand in a positive way.
Satisfaction is a reaction to an specific, point-in-time experience. Trust is built over time. Emotional value comes from the way the brand fits into life. These are stronger signals of future behaviour.
Our CX programmes measures emotional value and trust explicitly. Because they’re often what drives the choice, not just the review.
Advocacy should be tracked, not just asked about
There’s a big difference between saying “I’d recommend” and actually doing it.
That’s why we always separate advocacy into two parts. We ask how likely someone is to recommend a brand. But we also ask whether they’ve actually done it. That second question is often more powerful.
People overclaim. It’s human. Asking about real behaviour brings you closer to the truth.
If you only track intent, you’re relying on good intentions. If you track behaviour, you get a clearer view of influence.
How to move beyond satisfaction
If you’re a retailer or service brand and you’ve scored well on a satisfaction index, that’s a great start. But don’t stop there. The real value comes from digging into what drives behaviour, not just sentiment.
The most effective brands go further. They look at:
- Whether customers choose them regularly
- Whether they feel emotionally connected
- Whether they trust the brand to deliver
- Whether they recommend when no one is watching
These are all stronger predictors of growth than satisfaction alone.
So, we just forget CSAT?
Satisfaction scores are not wrong. It’s genuinely great that John Lewis are ‘Top of the Shops’ in this league table. But on its own, satisfaction isn’t the be all and end all.
If you want to understand how strong your customer relationships really are, and how to grow them, you need more. You need to measure trust, ease, emotional connection and claimed and actual recommendation.
That’s the approach we take with our CX programmes. If this sounds like the direction you want to head, get in touch.