Sector
Energy & Renewables

Location
Nationwide

Specflue is the UK’s number one supplier of flue, chimney and renewable energy solutions. They have trade counters based in Sudbury, Honiton, Castleford, and Stirling, covering the whole of the UK. The business was founded in 1992 as an independent company, with the guiding principles of innovation, the provision of top class products and outstanding service. These elements allowed Specflue to grow into a leader in its sector.

Specflue wanted to gauge how satisfied their customers were with their level of service. They liked the thought of working with a local company, as the project manager felt it would be more cost effective and liked the idea of having a company close to hand in case of any issues. They therefore approached Mackman to conduct their insight project.

Brand Facts

Specflue was founded in 1992 as an independent company with just five members of staff. Today the company employs over 100 members of staff.
They are the UK’s leading suppliers of flue, chimney and renewable heat products.
This network of locations allows Specflue to efficiently service most of the UK with their own fleet of vehicles.

Project Facts

Specflue approached Mackman to conduct a customer satisfaction survey in order to gain feedback on their customer service offering.
The results of the survey would be put into place to ascertain future development requirements.

The Client

Heating UK homes sustainably & safely

Mackman Research was commissioned to conduct a benchmark customer satisfaction survey on behalf of Specflue. The study was carried out to help Specflue improve the overall quality of customer service.

The aim was to gain more insight into current service levels, identifying strengths and weaknesses to help Specflue implement changes to foster competitive advantage and ascertain future development requirements to enable them to further grow their business.

Find out more

Read more about this research project for Specflue on the Mackman Research website.

Our Process

Connecting with customers through insight

Clients were invited by a letter from the National Sales Manager of Specflue to take part in the survey. Specflue provided a large contacts database containing information which was subsequently used to subdivide data by business area and location.

Specflue provided individual contact details. Survey participation was in the form of a telephone interview, lasting approximately six minutes with a Mackman researcher. In addition, customers who were unobtainable by telephone and had a valid email address supplied, were invited to take part through an online version of the survey. The survey consisted of closed questions and open questions. Numerous attempts were made to book a convenient time to conduct the survey with as many contacts as possible in the six week time scale.

What does this mean for Specflue?

Planning the customer satisfaction survey meticulously meant that the research project fit to a specific timescale and delivered on pre-determined objectives.

Approach

In collaboration with Specflue managers, Mackman Research designed a questionnaire based on the objectives, to help assess and measure the level of customer service provision across different commercial sectors and all areas of their day-to-day business. Clients were invited by a letter from the National Sales Manager of Specflue to take part in the survey. Specflue provided a large contacts database containing information which was subsequently used to subdivide data by business area and location.

The Results

From Specflue’s customer population, the research achieved a confidence level of 95% and a confidence interval of +/- 5.49%.

There was a positive response to Specflue’s customer satisfaction survey with a higher number of contributors than estimated in the set timescale. Mackman Research achieved 25% above the target response rate. It is very clear that Specflue have a loyal customer base who trade with them because of the quality of service they receive. The overall results for Specflue demonstrate excellent levels of service for their industry sector and highlighted areas where further improvement can be made. Mackman Research identified a number of key areas for development and recommended activities to influence customer satisfaction going forward. The study also informed Specflue about potential future developments for the business and provided competitor information.

After meetings with various companies regarding a customer and an employee satisfaction survey, Mackman were chosen. In our initial meetings they showed that they understood our business and what we were trying to achieve. As a company we had never outsourced our customer and employee satisfaction surveys before, or linked the two and wanted to ensure we got it right. We felt confident that Mackman would help us achieve this.

Mackman have over achieved on what we initially agreed which is brilliant as it means we have more responses for our customer survey than we initially agreed upon.

I would not hesitate to work with Mackman again. The staff are friendly and approachable and took the time to understand what we are trying to achieve. They always kept me updated on progress; they are enthusiastic, knowledgeable, have a ‘can-do’ approach and never missed any deadlines set.
Maria Marston-Fuller, Project Manager – Specflue

Benchmark Customer Satisfaction Survey – SPECFLUE