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This article was written and first featured in Campaign Asia
Thai consumers have clicked with Lazada, selecting the ecommerce major as their top brand for customer experience. Many use the online shopping platform in Thailand to buy everything for daily life more easily from groceries to clothes, electronics to car tires and to have it delivered to their door with frequent vouchers, deals, discounts and payment options to make shopping easier. 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, Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, Philippines and Singapore), whereby recognised brands with minimum awareness levels 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.
Although online shopping giants (Lazada, Shopee), delivery apps (Grab, Line Man, Foodpanda) and payment brands (K Bank, True Money) feature visibly, they don't completely dominate the list. Thai consumers also picked far more health and beauty names (Nivea, Vaseline, Garnier, L'Oreal, Ponds) in their Top 30 than other markets.
They also chose a wider variety of brands that included a healthy dose of QSR (KFC, McDonald's The Pizza Company, MK Restaurant), retail (Watsons, Uniqlo, Central) and apparel (Nike, Adidas) companies. Unlike Indonesia, where local brands dominated their top CX brands, Thai consumers did not select any local brands in their top 10. In total, only 8 of their top 30 brands for customer experience were based in Thailand, led by The Pizza Company (11), MK Restaurant (14) and Kasikornbank (17). Thailand's top department store retailer Central (29), also deserves to be singled out as the quality of its services was rated tops, tied for first with Netflix.
Let's have a closer look at the top performers.
Thailand's top 10
1) Lazada
Lazada finished fourth overall across Southeast Asia, but no market ranked it more highly for customer experience than Thailand, a rare market where it beat out Shopee. Lazada's strength in Thailand came mainly from two CX categories where it finished in first place. Lazada was easily considered to be the brand best optimised across all consumer touchpoints and was also the most recommended brand by Thai consumers.
2) Samsung
Samsung was Southeast Asia's top brand for CX, providing the hardware that powers so many consumers' digital experiences so there's no real surprise to see it in second place in Thailand. Samsung's advantage is its ubiquity—its awareness is unrivalled as it's seen everywhere. But it also finished third in terms of its seamless use across all touchpoints. Strong in quality (5) and recommendation (7), it only falls behind the leading brands when it comes to buying experience.
3. Grab
Grab's third-place ranking in Thailand aligns with its broader Southeast Asia result. Critical for transport and food delivery, Grab is easy to use and makes life simpler. It ranked second behind Lazada on seamless experience through all its touchpoints and is also Thailand's third most recommended, but slips behind the leading brands on buying experience and service quality.
4. Nike
This is a very strong result for Nike, compared to its 11th-place finish in Southeast Asia overall. There is no single aspect of CX responsible for this; instead, the sportswear brand performed at top 10 level or close to it in all CX categories, including being the 7th most recommended brand in Thailand. But it also benefitted from high brand awareness scores to begin with, much like Samsung.
5. YouTube
Thai consumers enjoy the ease of streaming media use when it comes to entertainment, putting both YouTube and Netflix among its top 10 CX brands. It didn't rank among the highest brands for things like buying experience, quality or touchpoints, but Thai users nonetheless like it enough overall to be the fourth most recommended brand in the market.
6. Nivea
Few health and beauty brands make it this high in the rankings, and Nivea's 6th place finish in Thailand is a clear outlier, responsible largely for its 20th position overall in Southeast Asia. As one might expect, it didn't score particularly highly in the categories where digital brands tend to (touchpoints, buying experience) but it did perform well enough to stay ahead of others, especially with solid combined quality and recommendation scores.
7. Netflix
Another outlier, Netflix's 7th place rank in Thailand, exceeds its 16th position overall in SEA. But the streaming video brand had exceptional scores in some categories. In service quality, Netflix tied with Central for first place and for first in buying experience alongside Singapore Airlines.
8. Shopee
Thailand was a rare case where Shopee, ranked second overall in Southeast Asia, slipped behind its Alibaba-backed rival Lazada. While its CX scores in all categories were solid, they still trailed behind Lazada on every count in this market.
9. KFC
Thailand's top-rated quick-service restaurant, KFC punches above its weight when it comes to online/offline customer interactions, ranking 5th overall for optimising across touchpoints. It's also Thailand's 8th most recommended brand overall. Rivals McDonald's and The Pizza Company follow directly behind KFC but neither beats the chicken king any of the CX categories.
10. McDonald's
McDonald's lags behind its 5th place ranking in Southeast Asia and scores substantially lower than its top rivals in the touchpoints category. While its fast and easy service helps it compete in the buying experience category, it trails Thail rivals like MK Restaurant, KFC and The Pizza Company when it comes to product quality.
Methodology
Brand health research is pivotal for grasping consumer perceptions, analyzing competitive landscapes, and devising effective marketing strategies, as elucidated in our brand health tracker guide.
