Sainsbury’s New Loyalty Scheme: How Does the Supermarket Stack Up for Customer Service?

Sainsbury's supermarket

Sainsbury’s Nectar Card loyalty scheme is set to be switched up by offering cheaper deals for members, in an effort to rival Tesco’s Clubcard format and satisfy customers struggling with the cost of living crisis.

Sainsbury’s is introducing more personalised discounts in their stores and online to customers who use the supermarket’s Nectar Card and SmartShop features, and it’s thought that customers could be set to save an incredible 50% off certain items, including at least 300 household products.

However, research from SaaSGenius.com has revealed that while both Sainsbury’s and Tesco are putting the effort in to offering cheaper deals to members, each of these grocery suppliers is lagging behind its competitors when it comes to customer service.

Helpful help desks chartSaaSGenius.com contacted 10 of the biggest grocery suppliers in the UK to discover which put in the most effort for efficient customer service, with M&S checking out as the most super supermarket for help desk for customers, scoring 68.4 out of 100.

As part of the Helpful Help Desks campaign, each grocery supplier was asked the question “I bought an item online, is there a store I can return it to?” across live chat, email and telephone calls.

M&S’s live chat experience was super speedy, with customers’ issues being connected to a human after just 2 messages, plus issues being resolved in only 3 messages. The supermarket giant offers its customers 4 different ways to contact them, either via phone, email, social media or its speedy on-site live chat.

Both Lidl and Aldi were found to truly value their customers, with each of these German discount grocery suppliers offering four different methods of efficient customer service, therefore ranking second and third respectively.

Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Morrisons and Asda may be four of the most familiar names on UK high streets, but when it comes to efficient customer service, these ‘big 4’ supermarkets fall behind the competition.

Asda was truly left needing a clean up in aisle ten as the Leeds-based supermarket giant offered three methods of customer service, but unfortunately long waiting times of 54 minutes over the phone let Asda down.

Morrisons also offered three methods of customer service, however, an on-site live chat help desk was not one of them. The Bradford-based supermarket also took over 72 hours to respond to an email query.

Meanwhile, Sainsbury’s sank to seventh place and Tesco trollied to eighth. These two popular supermarkets offered fewer methods of customer service than any of their competitors. Sainsbury’s offer just 2ways to get in touch (phone and social media), while Tesco had just 1 (phone).

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