The Ask Afrika Orange Index 2009 results – which rank companies according to service excellence – were recently unveiled. The survey gives a percentage score to each company which is an indication of the service levels and customer satisfaction associated with a company.<\/p>\n
Woolworths Food (73.4) received the highest customer satisfaction and service excellence rating in this year’s Orange Index, followed by Santam (71.5) and Miladys (71.1). <\/p>\n
The best industry rating was achieved by the Banking sector (68.1), followed by Clothing Retail (67.9) and Food Retail (66.7). The worst performing sector was Telecommunications with an average score of 54.66, well below last year’s 59.41.<\/p>\n
The best and worst telecoms companies<\/strong><\/p>\n MTN was ranked the best company for the third year running with a score of 67.02. Vodacom was second with 66.35 and Cell C third with 60.22. Telkom came in fourth with a score of 54.31 while Virgin Mobile finished last with a particularly low score of 18.36.<\/p>\n According to the survey the only telecommunications company that has shown an increase in its overall service ratings in the 2009 Orange Index is Vodacom. Virgin Mobile on the other hand showed the biggest decline in service levels over the last year, down 21.91%. Virgin Mobile also has the highest level of dissatisfied customers (27%) and this percentage has increased by 11% from 2008 when the dissatisfaction score was 16%. <\/p>\n MTN has been ranked the best telecoms company in the Ask Afrika Orange Index for the third year running, something which the company is particularly happy about. “Our customers are at the very heart of our business – we exist because of them. And, although this has been a very challenging year for MTN in terms of the current economic climate, our own systems and network infrastructure upgrades, and the introduction of RICA, our customer-facing staff have not let us down,” said Karel Pienaar, MD of MTN SA<\/p>\n