As with 11 of 13 of the sectors surveyed by the Institute of Customer Service, customer satisfaction has continued to drop in the non-food retail sector, reaching its lowest point since 2010. The average score for the sector declined by 1.7 points, which was a greater drop than the all-sector average of 1.1.

John Lewis was the highest scoring organisation in the sector, with a score of 87.2 points (out of 100 ). It was closely followed by Amazon, Argos and Next.

“Non food retailers continue to outperform other sectors, showing that their approach to customer service is still in many
ways more sophisticated that other areas in the UK economy,” said Jo Causon, CEO of the Institute of Customer Service.

“However we are seeing the polarisation. Organisations that are traditionally good at customer service are maintaining their position while those with lower levels of customer satisfaction are falling further behind. This is creating a customer service divide both within the retail sector and across the economy as a whole.”

These findings are from the January 2014 UKCSI. The next wave of results will be released in July 2015.