March 9th, 2023, Janice Fernandes
Delays, missed deliveries and parcel thefts have bothered UK consumers especially during the Christmas season. Now, nearly two months into the New Year, we look at whether these mishaps have affected the brand perception of delivery companies in the last quarter.
Using YouGov BrandIndex, a syndicated brand tracker which continuously collects data on thousands of brands around the globe every day, we look at seven delivery brands in the UK and examine how they fare across Index, Consideration and Current Customer metrics.
The Index metric, which calculates the overall brand health by taking the average of Impression, Value, Reputation, Satisfaction and Recommend scores, reveals that five of the seven courier services analysed have kept their brand health steady in the last three months. Some companies have maintained their brand health better than others – on average Index score for DHL is 7.1%, DPD (9.8%), FedEx (4.7%), Parcelforce (5.9%) and UPS (4.6%).
However, Royal Mail has seen its Index score drop considerably from 24.8% on November 18, 2022, to 8.7 on January 5, 2023. Strikes by Royal Mail postal workers during the key shopping season over the festive period could be partially responsible for this drop in brand health. The national courier service has managed to recover only by a few percentage points since then, rising to 15.1% on February 16. But will this upward streak last, considering recent reports of Royal Mail being under cyber-attack?
Low-cost delivery service, Evri, also sees its brand health drop during the busiest season of the year. Apart from missing parcels, delays and thefts, Evri was also under scrutiny because of a smishing scam (SMS phishing). Its overall brand health has been on a steady decline since November 18, 2022 (-4.6%). It’s the only brand here to register negative Index scores. Evri’s brand health is considerably weaker than any of its competitors right now.
Despite lower Index scores, UK consumers say they are more likely to consider using the services of Royal Mail the next time they are in the market to send a parcel, with the brand registering the highest Consideration score of all – 59.9% on November 17, 2022. Over the course of three months, there has been a slight dip in Consideration but at 53.6% on February 15, 2023, it still leads the pack by a considerable margin.
The Consideration score of FedEx and UPS is the lowest during this period, which means the next time Britons are in the market to utilise delivery services on average only 10.5% will consider FedEx and 11.2% will consider UPS services.
As the oldest postal service Royal Mail continues to have the highest rate of Current Customers, which continues to steadily increase – from 61.8 on November 17, 2022, to 66.7% on January 4, 2023.
Although consumers are not as likely to consider using Evri services the next time they are in the market (average Consideration score 21.3%), data from BrandIndex suggests Evri has the second highest share of current customers among Britons. The brand’s Current Customer score, which is the proportion of consumers who say they’ve used this delivery service in the past three months, goes from 34.5% in November 2022 to 40% in February 2023, perhaps a testament to a price-conscious population.
DPD is the third most popular courier service with a Current Customer score of 17% on February 16, 2023. Parcelforce is the only company whose Current Customer score has dropped considerably on February 16 (8.2%) from where it was on November 17 last year (9.9%).
Explore our living data – for free
Discover more retail content here
Want to run your own research? Run a survey now
Make smarter business decisions with better intelligence. Understand exactly what your audience is thinking by leveraging our panel of 20 million+ members. Speak with us today.
Methodology: YouGov BrandIndex collects data on thousands of brands every day. A brand’s Index score is based on an average of Impression, Value, Reputation, Recommend and Satisfaction scores, Consideration score is based on the question: “When you are in the market next to utilise a service, from which of the following would you consider using?”, and Current Customer score is based on the question: “Have you used a service from any of the following brands in the past three months?” Data from surveys of adults aged 18 years and above residing in Great Britain from November 17, 2022 and February 16, 2023. Figures are based on a four-week moving average.. Learn more about BrandIndex.