British consumers recommend First Direct, Sony, Saga, 02 and Apple

The Satmetrix European study reveals the thoughts of more than 8,700 UK consumers who have purchased products or services from each company surveyed, within the past 12 months.

Sectors included in the benchmarking study are banking, car insurance, ISP, mobile phone carriers, mobile phone handsets, computer hardware and the television/DVD industries.

First Direct was the clear winner in the banking sector, ahead of eight other banks in the study, with a ranking of +42%, making it 46 Net Promoter points ahead of the sector average of -4%.

Saga took pole position in the car insurance customer-experience stakes, with +17%, outperforming the industry average of -9% by 26 points

Brands consumers were most likely to recommend in the ISP sector were much closer, with less than half a Net Promoter point separating Virgin Media and Sky.

However, the competitive world of mobile phone carriers appeared to be being won by 02, the first network to exclusively carry the iPhone in the UK.

Its NPS of +24% was comfortably higher than the 3% average and 37 points ahead of last place 3 Mobile.

Apple's iPhone, meanwhile, won the best customer experience comfortably, coming some 80 points ahead of last place and 49 points ahead of the industry average.

Apple also had the highest score in the computer hardware sector, at +52%.

Meanwhile, Sony beat competition from LG, Panasonic, Philips, Samsung and Toshiba in the TV sector, with an NPS score of +39%, 15 points above the industry average.

Deborah Eastman, chief marketing officer at Satmetrix, said: "We continue to see the impact that the customer experience has on loyalty and business growth and profitability."

She added: "Best-in-class companies are those that truly focus on their customers, put in place the right processes to take action based on their feedback, and evaluate how this strategy translates to loyalty and personal recommendations."

This article was first published on marketingmagazine.co.uk