The study, which was carried out by the Singapore Management University (SMU) Institute of Service Excellence (ISE), calculated customer satisfaction scores at the national, sector, sub-sector, and company levels via face-to-face and online interviews of 4,800 consumers between January and April this year.

The 2022 Customer Satisfaction Index of Singapore (CSISG) survey considered four constituent sub-sectors to assess the retail sector’s performance. It was found that the retail sector’s dismal year-on-year growth was mainly because of the department stores sub-sector (70.9 points), which fell by 2.4 per cent and the fashion apparel sub-sector (72.1 points), which fell by 1.7 per cent. The other two sub-sectors, supermarkets (71.4 points) and e-commerce (70.8 points), also dipped by 0.8 per cent and 0.5 per cent, respectively.

“Customers of department stores and fashion apparel stores also registered significantly lower levels of customer loyalty, with scores falling by 4.0 per cent and 3.5 per cent respectively. Loyalty in the CSISG study is defined as the likelihood of repurchasing from the store or brand, and tolerance to changes in price,” an SMU news release said.

“While the growth in cashless payments has already been on a healthy upward trajectory for years prior, COVID-19 seemed to have accelerated adoption. This shift in payment behaviour also brought about seemingly better shopping experiences, such as greater satisfaction with retail payment processes,” said Neeta Lachmandas, ISE executive director, in the release. The survey revealed that retail customers who utilised cashless payments gave a satisfaction rating of 7.51 points (on a 1 to 10 scale) for payment process, which was considerably better than customers paying via cash, with an average rating of 7.17 points.

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (NB)