Customer experience has become one of the more reliable indicators of whether a business grows or stalls. The UK Customer Satisfaction Index, published by the Institute of Customer Service on 7 July 2026, put overall satisfaction at 78.3 out of 100, a full point higher than a year earlier and the fourth consecutive rise. The standard customers expect has moved upwards, and it has moved across every one of the 13 sectors the Index tracks.
The more useful finding for employers sits beneath that headline, the same research shows that customers who score an organisation 9 or 10 for customer service are almost twice as likely to recommend it as those who give a score of 8, by 94.8% to 54.3%, and 50% more likely to remain a customer, by 97.0% to 65.8%. It also found that 34.4% of customers are willing to spend more for a higher level of service, against 11.6% who put price above everything else. Service quality is not a soft measure. It is a commercial one.
That quality is produced almost entirely by business support teams: the administrators, coordinators, service advisors and finance assistants who handle the contact a customer actually experiences. In most growing businesses, they are also the last function to receive investment.
Customer experience is an operational outcome
A customer's judgement is formed by what happens in practice. Whether the order was processed correctly. Whether the query was resolved without being repeated three times. Whether the call was returned when it was promised. Those outcomes depend on capacity and competence within the support function, not on positioning or marketing.
The Institute of Customer Service identifies the key differentiators in raising satisfaction as demonstrating care and empathy, handling problems effectively and delivering efficient transactional experiences. Every one of those is delivered by people working in administration, support and customer service roles.
Growth exposes the support function first
When demand rises, the pressure lands on administration and customer service before it is visible anywhere else. Volumes increase while support capacity stays flat. Response times lengthen, follow-ups are missed, and errors that were previously caught internally begin to reach the customer. Senior and revenue-generating staff are drawn into administrative work, which is an expensive way to process an invoice.
The cost is real, but it rarely appears as a single figure. It shows up as slower renewals, fewer referrals and a gradual erosion of accounts that nobody has formally lost. By the time it registers commercially, the underlying customer experience problem has been in place for months.
Employers are already increasing support capacity
The market has moved ahead of the debate. ONS and HMRC figures published on 18 June 2026 show that between May 2025 and May 2026, administrative and support services recorded the largest increase in payrolled employees of any sector in the UK, a rise of 34,000, at a time when many sectors contracted and accommodation and food services fell by 80,000.
There are two implications. Employers are increasingly treating support capacity as a protection for revenue rather than an overhead. And competition for capable candidates in administration and customer service roles is intensifying, including across the North West, where demand for experienced office support consistently outstrips supply. A recruitment process that takes six weeks will lose those candidates.
What distinguishes a strong support hire
Accuracy and speed are the baseline, not the differentiator. The candidates who measurably improve customer experience tend to demonstrate four qualities:
· Ownership: they resolve the query rather than routing it onwards.
· Judgement: they recognise when a complaint requires escalation and when it requires a decision.
· Composure: they maintain the standard during peak periods, not only quiet ones.
· Systems fluency: they adopt a CRM or finance system quickly and use it accurately, which protects data quality for everyone downstream.
These are behavioural qualities and they are seldom evident from a CV. They are what we assess for when we place candidates into administration, customer service and business support roles.
Support capacity is what makes growth sustainable
Winning new customers is comparatively straightforward, retaining them as volumes increase is not. Strong business support teams are what convert a strong quarter into sustained business growth, because they deliver on the commitments the sales team has already made.
If your support function is under pressure, whether the requirement is a permanent appointment, temporary cover through a peak period or a wider team build, our services for employers set out how we can help. Contact us to discuss what your business needs.
