© Press Association Waitrose, Iceland and Marks & Spencer have bagged the top slots in a supermarket survey based on customers’ levels of satisfaction when shopping in store and online. The upmarket grocer topped the “bricks and mortar” table in the annual poll by consumer group Which? for the third year in a row, narrowly beating M&S. Iceland’s home delivery service came top for the second successive year after receiving the highest, five-star customer score. Which? said Waitrose’s high levels of customer service had won over shoppers. It was the only chain to get five stars for staff availability and helpfulness, boosted by parent company the John Lewis Partnership’s bonus scheme whereby all employees share in the profits. Waitrose and M&S won plaudits from shoppers for their store appearance and quality of own-label and fresh products. M&S’s “Dine In” offers – a meal for two for £10 including a bottle of wine – also scored highly. Which? asked more than 7,000 shoppers to rate stores where they had shopped in the previous six months based on factors including appearance, length of queues, ease of finding products and overall quality of fresh foods. For the online ranking, shoppers were asked about relevance of substitutions for products, value for money and delivery service. The consumer group also asked more than 4,700 people about their experience of using convenience stores, with M&S Simply Food stores coming top and stalwarts Budgens, Nisa and Spar at the bottom. “With concerns over rising prices, the competition…more detail
