Results 2001

SASI Launch of the South African Satisfaction Index

The South African Satisfaction Index (SAS Index™) is here and the morning of Monday 29th October 2001 saw its arrival. Brand Pretorius, the current CEO of McCarthy Retail, and an avid proponent of customer satisfaction strategies, chaired the morning’s launch of the SAS Index™. Swedish Professor Jan Eklöf officially welcomed SAS Index™ to the global customer satisfaction community.

SAS Index™ is an independent, internationally comparable measure, aimed at evaluating customer satisfaction across industries and across companies, providing a view of the quality of service delivered by companies in South Africa. It aims to encourage competitiveness by offering a customer-driven, comparative measure of satisfaction.

With this launch, South Africa now joins the United States of America, approximately 10 countries in Europe, as well as certain Far East countries, in conducting national customer satisfaction studies.

Which industries are managing to deliver a customer-focused service to their customers? Of the four industries surveyed to date, the results show that the Accommodation industry (Hotels: Private and Business) is managing to deliver the highest levels of satisfaction, followed by the cellular component of the Telecommunications (Private) industry. The Postal (Private) and Banking (Retail cheque account banking) followed respectively.

SAS Index™ extends its congratulations to City Lodge as being the benchmark for quality service among the industries surveyed. This status has been achieved among the following companies surveyed, listed alphabetically:

Accommodation industry (Hotels):	Banking industry (Retail):
Holiday Inn Garden Court; Protea; Southern Sun.	ABSA; First National Bank; Nedbank; Standard Bank.
Postal industry:	Telecommunications industry:
Post-Net; Post Office.	MTN; Vodacom Telkom.

The graphs that follow show the results, by industry and by company, for those companies performing above their industry average.

Graph : Customer Satisfaction of Industries

Graph : Private and Business users with Hotel Accommodation

Graph : Private users with Telecommunications Providers

Graph : Private users with Postal Services

Graph : Retail Cheque Account Banking

These four industries mark only the beginning of an extended study that will be conducted throughout South African industries and companies on an ongoing basis. As a result, SAS Index™ will transform the way the South Africans perceive customer satisfaction; compelling the economy in general to take a more customer focused approach. With comparative ratings on customer satisfaction being provided, the barriers of inter-industry diversity have been crossed and ultimately, benchmarking on an international level will be possible.

The government, represented by Alan Hirsch, Deputy Chief Economist of the Department of Trade and Industry, congratulated the SAS Index™ on driving competitive satisfaction in this country. With South Africa being the democracy it is, as well the President’s vision of the African Renaissance, the SAS Index™ provides an economic transparency indicative of these ideals towards increased national productivity. As part of this, SAS Index™'s commissioned research company, Synovate (formerly known as Proactive Insight) has also been awarded the tender to conduct a Citizen Service Satisfaction Research using the SAS Index™ framework. The government departments that will be measured include Health, Education, Housing and Welfare. The SAS Index™ will allow these departments to benchmark their customer satisfaction ratings with other industries.

With a study of this nature being conducted, various sponsors have eagerly involved themselves. The initial concept originated from the National Productivity Institute (NPI) who commissioned Synovate (formerly known as Proactive Insight) to conduct the research. Since those early stages, the University of Pretoria (through Consulta Research), together with the auditing firm Moores Rowland have been included. The remainder of the sponsors are the SAS Institute (global software company), CMC Networks and Proactive Technology Solutions.

Synovate (formerly known as Proactive Insight) has been involved in the research of the SAS Index™ since the beginning of the process, led by Jeanette Deetlefs, the Research Director at Synovate (formerly known as Proactive Insight), and a member of the International Foundation for Customer Focus (IFCF).

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