New Zealand online retailer Mighty Ape is the top-ranked retailer for customer service in the annual Kantar Customer Leadership Index just released. 

Founded in 1999 as Virtual Store, Mighty Ape is one of the most popular online shopping sites in New Zealand. The company serves more than 250,000 customers every year and boasts a Google rating of 4.9/5 stars with more than 30,000 reviews.  The brand also recently won Canstar Blue’s Most Satisfied Customers Award 2020. 

While Mighty Ape is ranked the best retailer in customer service, supermarket chain New World came in ninth place and is the highest predominantly offline retailer, followed by appliance retailer and The Warehouse Group subsidiary Noel Leeming in 10th. 

According to Kantar, online and offline retail brands perform well at different aspects of customer experience. Online retailers generally do better at being clear in their offer, easy to purchase and offering good prices, while offline retailers are more flexible and rectifying issues than online. 

“The retailer who can best combine the responsiveness and personal touch of an offline retailer with the ease, speed and fair value of online will have a strong competitive advantage,” said David Thomas, MD at Kantar. 

The overall winner in the Kantar Customer Leadership Index was AA Insurance. The top 10, with scores, are:

AA Insurance 72
Kiwibank 71
ASB 68
Mighty Ape 66
Southern Cross 66
Air New Zealand 65
State 64
2degrees 64
New World 63
Noel Leeming 62