Housewares Business-to-business magazine for housewares retailers and their suppliers
Well over half of consumers will pay a premium to the company they believe has the best reputation, even if they can buy a product or service cheaper elsewhere, a new CBI survey reveals.
Among the 58% of consumers willing to pay more to their most highly-regarded company, 43% would pay up to another 5%, 29% are happy to pay 6 to 10% more, while 16% would pay more than a 10% premium.
In the survey, which was conducted by YouGov1, excellent customer service was cited by almost half of all survey respondents (48%) as the characteristic that most helps a firm build its reputation. Another third (36%) said that products and services always living up to expectations mattered most, while 7% said a good reputation was down to being a good employer and 4% attributed it to brand appeal.
For a distrusted company to rebuild its reputation, 45% of consumers said the best thing for it to do was to come clean and publicly apologise, while 28% believed a company’s best policy was to compensate customers.
The survey also reveals the 10 companies that UK consumers say have the best reputation. At the top of the list of unprompted replies is Marks & Spencer, which gained almost twice as many mentions as the next highest, John Lewis Partnership – itself closely followed by the Virgin Group.
The next three highly-rated companies were Tesco, Sony and Asda, with Amazon, Apple, Boots and then the BBC completing the top 10.
