Malaysia's top brands for customer experience

Grab tops Malaysia's list of top brands for customer experience with the self-described super-app used to speed up many day-to-day activities of Malaysians, from transportation to grocery shopping, gift buying and more. 

The ranking stems from Campaign's authoritative list of Southeast Asia's top 50 brands for consumer experience, recently revealed at Campaign360 in partnership with research firm Milieu Insight.

Six markets were involved in the survey (Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam Singapore) whereby recognised brands across 11 sectors were ranked across five CX metrics: quality, buying experience, customer service, brand touchpoints (ease of use across all digital and offline brand interactions) and advocacy (degree of recommendation) to form their customer experience score.

Malaysia's Top 30 brands by customer experience score

Among the top brands, etailing and delivery apps figure prominently, along with mobile hardware brands that enable better CX. But even bricks and mortar retailers like Watsons, Uniqlo and Guardina and sports apparel brands like Adidas and Nike were able to score well in terms of quality and recommendations.

Unlike Indonesia where a majority of the top 10 brands for CX were local brands, Malaysians reported better experience generally from international brands. While many Malaysians consider Grab to be their own, leading local bank Maybank was the only Malaysian-based brand in the top 10, with mobile service provider Digi (21), apparel retailer Padini (22) and national carrier Malaysian Airlines (27) being the only local brands to make the top 30.

Let's have a closer look at the top performers.

Malaysia's top 10 

1. Grab 

The ride-hailing superapp scored the highest of any brand in the market when it comes to seamless brand experience across all touchpoints, a category that tends to separate the leaders from the laggards. It's also critical for ride-hailing and food delivery with every transaction involving both consumer mobile and in-person service delivery touchpoints. But Grab also was the brand most recommended by users and came in second only to Apple in terms of product quality. 

2. Lazada

Although Alibaba-owned Lazada finished closely behind Shopee overall across Southeast Asia, it beat its rival in the Malaysian market. Lazada outperformed Shopee in Malaysia on most CX scores, including optimisation across touchpoints and recommendation scores, where it finished second overall among brands, and in quality of service where it landed third overall. It was only in the buying experience where Lazada's scores dipped and trailed its rival. 

3. Foodpanda

Although Foodpanda doesn't have the breadth of services that Grab does just yet, the food and grocery delivery app scores highly for many of the same reasons. It finished third in the all-important category of being the best optimised across all touchpoints which gave Malaysians the confidence to make it their third most-recommended brand as well.  

4. Watsons

The drug store retailer benefits from its high awareness through its many locations but also scored in the top 10 across most CX categories standing out with its strong customer service. But it even fared well in the touchpoints category, proving that physical retail brands can be leaders in customer experience online and offline. 

5. McDonald's

The global fast food giant finishes 5th overall in Malaysia, as it does across Southeast Asia, benefitting from higher awareness scores, much like Watsons. Yet while customers in other markets celebrate efficiency of its ordering and buying experience and fast service, Malaysian consumers ranked McDonalds well in terms of quality and recommendation but were less impressed by its buying experience.

6. Shopee

Across Southeast Asia, Shopee finished second overall, but slips to sixth place in Malaysia. Although the market preferred Shopee's buying experience to Lazada's, they ranked Shopee behind Lazada in most CX scores, including seamlessness of service across touchpoints, quality and were less likely to recommend it. Overall however, Shopee's scores on CX remain impressive beating out most other retailers and shopping sites. 

7. Adidas

Sports apparel brands Adidas and Nike both punched above their overall scores in Malaysia. While Nike enjoys a higher brand awareness across Southeast Asia, more consumers reported having bought Adidas products. That helped the brand edge out its rival along with slightly better scores for its buying experience and touchpoint interactions. 

8. Maybank

The highest-ranked local brand in Malaysia, Maybank scored pretty well across all CX measurements. But it did especially well at providing better experiences across all touchpoints, digital and physical, where it rankied 6th overall in the category. 

9. Nike

While Nike enjoys a higher brand awareness across Southeast Asia, more consumers reported having bought Adidas products. Both of the these brands fared better in Malaysia thanks to their strong quality and recommendation scores, which were exactly the same. While neither brand fared exceptionally in terms of buying experience and touchpoint interactions, Nike trailed Adidas slightly. 

10. Apple

Apple slightly underformed in Malaysia compared to the rest of Southeast Asia where it ranked 8th. Its buying experience scored significantly higher in Malaysia, however, where it ranked 5th overall. But it was in the quality category, where Apple was the hands-down winner, scoring 72, leaving its next highest rival, Grab, in the dust at 66.5.

Methodology