PEP NEWS

NEWS ARCHIVES

SURPRISE WINNER IS DELIGHTING CUSTOMERS

22 February 2007

NEWS RELEASE
PEP has beaten sixty-five companies across 12 service industry sectors and scored the highest ratings for service excellence in the 2006 Ask Afrika Orange Index survey.  PEP is Southern Africa’s biggest single brand retailer with just over 1 350 stores and while this result may surprise some industry observers, it is in line with the retailer’s vision.

PEP’s managing director, George Steyn believes that a delighted customer is a satisfied customer.  “Our focus is on delighting our customers”.
The survey covered service criteria such as staff friendliness and knowledgeability, responsiveness and empowerment to deal with requests, reliability, empathy and valuing of customers.  Orange Index business analyst, Maria Petousis explains: “PEP scored way above average on all of these strengths.  I believe that PEP has gone beyond the consumer boom and works from the inside out in valuing its customers.”

The study aims to serve as an indicator of South African companies’ state of service quality. Computer-aided telephonic interviews were conducted between September and December 2006 with approximately 6 000 randomly selected South Africans across 12 industries*.
South Africa is increasingly following the worldwide trend to shift its focus to customer-focused and quality service-orientated business practice. In the past, South Africa was often associated with poor service. This led to the establishment of The Orange Index in order to give companies insights into the level of service quality in their company and its impact on customer loyalty.
* The 12 sectors in the survey: Food Retail, Fast Food, Clothing Retail, Petro-Chemical, Automotive, Long term insurance, Short term insurance, Banks, Medical Aid, Telecommunication, Airline and Government.

A full report on the survey is included in Finweek (22 February 2007) as a bound-in supplement.