The UK Customer Satisfaction Awards are the UK's most prestigious customer service awards – run by THE professional body for customer service – and in a room filled with household names as finalists, Hydraulics Online was recognised for its outstanding customer commitment to businesses globally
Founded in 1996, The Institute of Customer Service works nationally with business, the public sector and the Government to drive business performance through service excellence. Its mission is clear: to inspire a service nation.
Now in their 14th year, the UK Customer Satisfaction Awards showcase those organisations from across the UK with an unwavering commitment to service excellence, recognising their tenacity, creativity and innovation. The latest awards ceremony took place on 12th March 2024 at the London Hilton on Park Lane.
Promoting Best Practice
These awards really are the most prestigious and coveted awards of their kind in the UK. As such, they draw attention from far and wide attracting a diverse range of high-profile, high-calibre applicants covering a broad spectrum of industries.
The independent judging panel, made up of 36 experienced customer experience leaders from the public, private and educational sectors across the UK, were commended for their robustness and integrity in ensuring the success of the awards, selecting the winners who had “displayed the highest standards of service”. Meanwhile, sponsors included Ipsos, the multinational market research company, and Kantar, the world’s leading marketing data and analytics business – all keen to promote best practice to help raise customer service standards across the board.
The award categories were: Best Customer Experience – Customer Feedback Strategy – Customer Focus (Large Enterprise) – Sustainable Customer Service – Best Application of Technology – Best Customer Satisfaction Innovation – Best use of Customer Insight – Best Customer Satisfaction Strategy – Employee Engagement Strategy – Best Return on Customer Service Investment – Customer Service Strategy Leadership – Best Customer Service Partnership – Customer Commitment B2C – Customer Focus SME – Trusted Quality Provider and our category… Customer Commitment – Business to Business!
Blue-chip household names were amongst the winners on the night that included: British Gas, Octopus Energy, Virgin Atlantic, Specsavers, Sky and Openreach, Zurich Insurance and Boots UK.
Simply Overwhelmed to be Recognised…
The Customer Commitment Award, Business-to-Business, was open to any UK organisation that had differentiated itself through a well-communicated customer commitment strategy operating in the business-to-business environment. The judges looked for evidence of the execution of a customer-oriented culture showing a consistent commitment to customer service excellence. The award was sponsored by Freshworks Inc.
In announcing Hydraulics Online as the winners, the compère explained how the judges were impressed by Hydraulics Online’s “commitment to the provision of a differentiated customer-led service in an otherwise complex and fragmented marketplace” that supported an extensive global customer base.
Trusted Service, Provided Globally
Speaking ahead of the big night about Hydraulics Online’s customer commitment, Mark Tonks, co-founder said:
Hydraulic engineering is complicated. We recognise that our customers come with diverse levels of technical knowledge and understanding – from highly-qualified, time-served engineers to absolute beginners – and that each one has a unique enquiry. Every enquiry receives a bespoke response by our team to ensure we can give best advice and get things right first time – which can sometimes mean addressing poor/incorrect diagnosis received elsewhere.
It means that our customers can harness our knowledge and expertise for their own benefit – whether that’s getting out of what they thought was an impossible ‘tight-spot’; bringing ideas to life; extending the life of existing, time-served systems and equipment and/or creating more efficient, effective sustainable solutions.
ISO 9001:2015 Quality Management
To date, Hydraulics Online has supported over 5000 customers in 130 countries worldwide – from business start-ups to global, household names. This achievement has seen Hydraulics Online recognised as ‘Export Champions’ by the UK Government’s Department for Business and Trade every year since 2019.
Our commitment to service excellence is underpinned by our ISO 9001 Quality Management accreditation which drives a culture of continuous improvement in all aspects and areas of the business. We were first certified in 2014, having realised the many benefits that accreditation would bring to our business and, crucially, to our customers.
Co-founder, Helen Tonks explains: “We chose to work with the British Standards Institution as a recognised world authority on management systems. In securing our accreditation, we really wanted to be put through our paces – to have the best possible opportunity to learn and fine-tune our operations, to ensure that we remained well-positioned to always deliver a superior customer experience as we continued to grow.”
Speaking of the win, Helen commented:
I knew our entry was strong, but I’m genuinely lost for words. I keep thinking of a quote that I stumbled on recently; it took me right back to 2004 when we were starting out and were mocked by others for building a business that put customers, rather than products, first.
“When someone tells you it can’t be done, it’s more a reflection of their limitations, not yours.”
I can’t even begin to describe how this feels. Proud doesn’t come anywhere close.
Join in the Celebrations…
Join in the celebrations at The Hilton on Park Lane, London and watch the moment that Hydraulics Online was announced as a winner at the Institute of Customer Service’s Customer Satisfaction Awards in the Customer Commitment, Business-to-Business category…
It’s fair to say that Helen and Mark were left speechless!
And then, in the second video, take a peek behind the scenes and watch the interview back stage.
Customers, throughout the UK and worldwide, harness our trusted knowledge, expertise and award-winning service…
