Winner: Waitrose
Waitrose picked up the best customer service awards for the sixth year in a row.
The Grocer’s weekly mystery shopping competition moved to a new format this year, which pits shops in the same town or region against each other (plus a handful of special themed shops). This meant Waitrose did not feature as frequently as other retailers because, for example, it doesn’t have any full-sized stores in the Lake District, Leicester, Newcastle, or South Shields.
But when it did compete it consistently scored the highest points tally and was more likely to win. It notched up 15 wins across 46 appearances, a success rate of just under one in three mystery shops.
Waitrose’s average score was 77.3 points, and it also racked up the highest averages for customer service (17.9/20), store experience (15/20) and features and services (7.9/10).
Tesco improved its performance the most. It also won 15 store-of-the-week awards, and its average score was 77.3.
Tesco had the highest average score for accessibility, which covers areas including car parks and how easy it is to find a trolley.
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Sainsbury’s had six wins overall, a reduction of three. However, its average score improved more than any other supermarket’s, going up to 72.7. That was made possible by improvements on availability and picking up the highest average score on the tills and checkouts portion of the mystery shopper survey.
Meanwhile, Morrisons had five weekly victories, another improvement on last year, but Asda was hampered by a lower score for customer service and took home just three wins.
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