Vietnam's top brands for customer experience

Vietnamese consumers have selected Samsung as their top brand for customer experience, as the mobile and consumer electronics giant plays a central role in helping many Vietnamese with daily activities, especially in powering their online experiences. 

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, Thailand, Philippines, Vietnam and 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.

Vietnam's Top 30 brands by customer experience score

Among the top brands, fintech payment providers (MoMo, ZaloPay) ecommerce retailers (Shopee, Lazada, Tiki) and mobile-related providers (Viettel, Thế Giới Di Động) appeared most often and moreso than in other markets, followed by consumer electronics and mobile hardware brands that enable better CX. While some QSR, retail and apparel companies made the list, they figured less prominently in Vietnam than in other Southeast Asian markets.

Similar to Indonesia, Vietnamese consumers felt many local brands, nearly half (13) of their top 30, provided them with the best customer experience. While this may indicate local familiarity can also be a comfort factor in a customer's overall experience, it may also reflect that local brands know better how to cater to the market's needs. 

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

Vietnam's top 10 

1. Samsung

Vietnam may have been the only market where consumers rated Samsung as their top customer experience brand, but collectively the Korean mobile and home electronics giant also ranked first across Southeast Asia, thanks to solid CX scores across the board, with an extra strong boost from having higher awareness. As in all SEA markets, Samsung is everpresent in Vietnam, but it also was the second highest brand ranked in terms of product quality. 

2. Vietnam Airlines

The top ranking brand for product quality, in fact, was Vietnam Airlines. In fact, in Vietnam, the airline was also tops in most categories including optimisation across touchpoints, buying experience and recommendation scores. The only reason it landed second after Samsung was due to lower overall awareness. It's lack of recognition beyond its own market is also why it also missed out on the SEA ranking overall. 

3. Grab

Like Samsung, Grab's third-place ranking is exactly in line 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 Vietnam Airlines on its touchpoints, buying experience and recommendation scores, but fell out of the top three brands when it came to product or service quality.  

4. Viettel

The largest mobile network operator in Vietnam powers most of the daily digital experience of consumers. It ties Samsung for being the third highest recommended brand, and also scores third for touchpoints. The telco's service quality rates well, tying Grab for fourth in that category, only slipping out of the top 10 on buying experience.   

5. Shopee

Across Southeast Asia, Shopee finished second overall, but slips to fifth place in Vietnam. Nonetheless, it's still the market's highest-ranking etailer for CX, ranking fourth for seamless service across touchpoints and earns the fifth highest recommendaion scores. It's on service quality and buying experience, however, where it still trails some of its peers. 

6. MoMo

The e-wallet and payments app facilities many of the digital transactions that help customers shop and get things done. While it scored highest on being optimised across touchpoints, its scores in the other CX categories were solid and consistent enough to push it to number six.   

7. Thế Giới Di Động

Thế Giới Di Động is Vietnam's largest mobile retailer, known for its distinctive yellow stores.  It excelled in the survey on customer service quality and had a strong recommendation score. It's buying experience wasn't quite as strong, but still well above average

8. Apple

Like Samsung and Grab, Apple's 8th position in Vietnam mirrors its overall score in Southeast Asia. Like in other markets, Apple's quality is its best CX advantage, though it placed third behing Samsung in Vietnam, and was also less recommended than its Korean rival. Apple beat Samung in Vietnam on buying experience but slipped significantly below its rival in how it optimises across touchpoints. 

9. YouTube

YouTube has had an up-and-down relationship with regulators in Vietnam, but that's partly due to its high popularity. In Milieu's survey, the streaming video service fared well enough across all CX scores to manage a 9th place ranking, without being outstanding in any one category. 

10. KFC

The fifth brand in Vietnam's top 10 to match its overall Southeast Asian ranking, KFC is the top-rated QSR brand for customer experience in a market where global rivals like McDonald's and Burger King never really took hold. Its fast and easy service earned it third place overall in the buying experience category. But its quality is also rated highly, tying Viettel and Grab in that category while being the sixth most recommended brand in the market. 

Methodology