Excelling in customer service during a year of unprecedented recovery and rebuilding, Specsavers is the 2023 winner of Reader’s Digest’s prestigious Quality Service Award, with Visique named as runner up in the optometry category.  

Announcing the results, Reader’s Digest acknowledged Covid-19 and consequent lockdowns heavily impacted daily operations for the majority of businesses. Yet the customer service teams of businesses listed as Quality Service Award winners for 2023 rallied, building success by placing their customers’ needs at the centre of all business responses, said the magazine’s Asia Pacific editor-in-chief Louise Waterson. 

While the pandemic may have shifted the standard markers of business achievements, customer service and corporate social responsibility have remained at the core, she said. “This year has witnessed a greater focus and determination among customer service teams to ensure their customers’ needs, no matter how complex, are resolved quickly and with trouble-free solutions. For the award-winning businesses this means delivering assistance in an innovative and savvy manner, while remaining approachable simply by upholding levels of kindness and understanding as central to assisting individual customers properly.” 

Running since 2015, Reader’s Digest’s Quality Service Award has recognised companies with the most satisfied customers across 35 categories, with Catalyst Consultancy & Research surveying 1,620 people of mixed demographics on their experiences with a range of New Zealand service providers.