M&S’s reputation has suffered in the wake of the cyberattack on the retailer, with fewer consumers now willing to recommend it, according to new research.
The percentage of consumers who would recommend M&S dropped from 87% at the start of the year to 66% by June, according to The Harris Poll UK.
The latest June survey of 1,000 “nationally representative UK consumers” builds on a previous one in April, in the immediate aftermath of the cyberattack. That showed the proportion who would recommend M&S had already dropped since the start of the year, to 73%.
“Customer forgiveness” – the percentage of respondents who say they would be willing to forgive M&S – is also down, from 84% in January to 72% in June, according to the poll.
Meanwhile, M&S has dropped from fifth to 51st place in The Harris Poll UK’s corporate reputation rankings.
Read more: Cyberattacks: how M&S and Co-op handled the PR crisis
“The data tells a clear story – the cyber incident and its aftermath have fundamentally shaken confidence in M&S’s direction and crisis readiness,” said Stephen Brockway, chief research officer at The Harris Poll UK.
“However, this is not a reputational collapse. There’s still a strong core of consumer trust, especially in the quality of what M&S offers.
“The brand has meaningful ‘reputational credit’ in the bank, however that credit is being spent thanks to this cyber incident. If M&S moves quickly to rebuild authority and communicate a clear future path, it can recover from this.”
NIQ data this week showed M&S slipping behind Waitrose in market share for the first time since September last year. M&S’s share in the 12 weeks to 12 July was 3.6%, compared with Waitrose’s 3.7%. In the 12 weeks to 19 April – just before hackers struck during the Easter bank holiday weekend – M&S had 3.9% of the market, compared with Waitrose’s 3.7%.
M&S told customers in May that their personal data had been stolen, including contact details and household information but not usable payment card details.
New Kantar data this week also showed M&S sales growth had slowed since the attack. Its grocery sales were up 6.5% year on year in the 12 weeks to 13 July. In the 12 weeks to 20 April, before the attack, M&S’s grocery sales were up 14.4% year on year.
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