Thursday 05 July 2018 2:59 pm

Amazon tops UK customer satisfaction rankings as Iceland becomes the UK’s top supermarket for the first time

Amazon has been named the top company in the UK for customer satisfaction for the sixth consecutive year, while Iceland scored the number one spot in food retail for the first time.

Amazon scored 86.7 out of a potential 100 points, followed closely by John Lewis which scored 86.5.

Yorkshire Bank took joint third in the rankings with fashion retailer Next, as banks made a significant impression on the top 10 this year. First Direct came in joint fifth place with Nationwide at 85.6, while M&S Bank took joint eighth with Wilko at 84.4.

Iceland, which came in 10th overall, was the best-performing food retailer on the list with a score of 84 out of 100. Netflix scored the top spot for the leisure sector, coming in just behind the frozen food specialist in 11th place at 83.9.

The UK customer satisfaction index polls 10,000 consumers to be released twice a year, covering all business sectors.

In January's rankings, Waitrose took the top supermarket spot, with Aldi winning the title in July 2017. This year, Waitrose came in second place for food retail and 16th overall at 83.8, which was a drop of 0.8 per cent. Aldi fell to a joint 23rd spot with M&S Food, at 82.6.

However a slight, further drop in customer satisfaction overall this month has chief executive of the index, Joanna Causon, concerned.

She cited the introduction of GDPR, the controversy surrounding data sharing in the fallout from Cambridge Analytica, and Brexit uncertainty as key factors affecting industries at the moment.

"Retailers are grappling with uncertain consumer demand and a fundamental shift in customer behaviour, which has forced a rethink in the economics of serving large numbers of customers across multiple channels," Causon said in a statement.

"Customers' trust needs to be earned, by being transparent about how data is used and making it easy to access knowledge, help and advice."

"Despite the recent upturn in productivity, few doubt that the UK faces major long-term challenges to improve skills and infrastructure across the whole of the economy."