Woolworths and Coles may dominate the local supermarket space, however when it comes to customer satisfaction Foodland and Aldi win out, according to a new report from Roy Morgan Research.
Among the big five supermarkets, Foodland was the top performer with a customer satisfaction score of 94.4% in August, according to the latest figures from Roy Morgan’s ongoing study involving more that 12,000 interviews with grocery buyers per annum.
Foodland scored the highest satisfaction for dairy, delicatessen, fresh fruits and vegetables and fresh seafood, with Aldi leading in the packaged groceries satisfaction ranks. Coles and Woolworths jointly lead when it comes to customer satisfaction with bread products.
Foodland was also one of only two supermarkets to increase satisfaction over the last year, up by 0.6% points.
Following Foodland in the customer satisfaction pecking order was Aldi on 92.3% (down 3.5% points year-on-year), Woolworths at 90% (up 2.5% points) and Coles at 88.4% (down 2.3% points), with IGA last at 84.7% (down 7.5% points).
Meanwhile, Foodland again led all comers when it comes to customer loyalty, with its main shoppers spending 71% of their total grocery spending at the supermarket, up 1.8% points year-on-year.
Woolworths’ main shoppers spent 70.9% with the supermarket (down 0.5% points year-on-year), followed by IGA at 69.1% (up 4.7% points), Coles at 67.4% (up 2.9% points) and Aldi (55.5%, down 3.1% points).
“There appears to be plenty of scope to increase supermarket sales if customer loyalty can be improved,” Norman Morris, Roy Morgan industry communications director, commented.
“Currently the best performers in the market are only achieving around 70% of their main customers’ total supermarket spend, with the lowest achieving just over half.
“Increasing the share of customer spend for the major supermarkets has remained a considerable challenge for some time. This is evident by the fact that over the last five years, all of the top five supermarkets have seen a decline in the share of their customers’ spend, despite various attempts at loyalty programs.”
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Martin Kovacs is a journalist with experience covering the IT, consumer electronics, retail, finance and energy sectors.
