Benchmarks / SurveyBench / Why Quaymark's customer score fell / Muse Ember

Measured by Spring Prompt

Muse Ember: Why Quaymark's customer score fell

The decision: whether to reverse the per-shipment fee and bring back the subscription, invest in shipment tracking and proactive delay alerts, or add account managers for mid-sized customers. The brief and the data →

Verdict: ✓ Sound research
Research score: 100 of 100
Analysis rating: 1,392
Head to head, this task: won 10 of 12

Scorecard

Numbers 12 of 12 right

Question		Its answer	True
What is the Q3 2026 wave's NPS across all respondents (percentage scoring 9-10 minus percentage scoring 0-6), unweighted?	✓	12.9	12.9
Weighted to the shipments-a-month mix of all 4,720 active accounts, what is the Q3 2026 wave's NPS?	✓	17.7	17.8
Re-weighted to the shipments-a-month mix of the Q1 2026 wave's respondents, what is the Q3 2026 wave's NPS?	✓	20.3	20.3
Among respondents who scored 0-6 and answered the open question, what percentage of answers mention tracking (not being able to see where shipments are) or late or missed collections or deliveries?	✓	68.9%	68.9%
How many of the open-text answers mention the per-shipment fee or its cost?	✓	21	21
What is the 95% margin of error, in percentage points, on the Q3 2026 wave's unweighted share of respondents scoring 9-10?	✓	4.1 points	4.12 points
Among accounts booking 100 or more shipments a month, is the change in the share scoring 9-10 between the Q1 2026 and Q3 2026 waves statistically significant at the 95% level? (1 for yes, 0 for no)	✓	No	No
What percentage of the accounts invited to the Q3 2026 wave completed it?	✓	11%	11%
Among Q3 2026 respondents booking fewer than 20 shipments a month, what percentage said the per-shipment fee is worse for their business than the subscription?	✓	49.2%	49.2%
Among accounts booking fewer than 20 shipments a month, by how many points did NPS fall between the Q1 2026 and Q3 2026 waves?	✓	3.9 points	3.9 points
How many Q3 2026 respondents who send shipments to the Republic of Ireland scored 0-6?	✓	13	13
Weighted to the shipments-a-month mix of all 4,720 active accounts, about how many accounts would score 0-6?	✓	1,001	1,001

Traps in the data 8 of 8 handled

✓The Q1 wave (+24) was phone interviews by account managers; the Q3 wave (+13) was online. Interviewer-administered scores, especially when the interviewer is the customer's own account manager, run higher, so part of the fall may be the change of method rather than a change in loyalty.
✓Accounts booking fewer than 20 shipments a month are 61% of Q3 respondents against 30% in Q1 and 40% of active accounts, and they score lowest (Q3 NPS +5). Re-weighted to Q1's mix the Q3 NPS is +20.3, and to the active-account mix +17.8, so much of the 11-point fall is a change in who answered.
✓The commercial director believes the fee caused the fall. Among detractors who explained their score, 69% mention tracking or delays and 18% the fee; only 39% of all respondents say the fee is worse than the subscription (49% of small accounts, 15% of the largest).
✓Respondents who ship to Ireland (base 14) are nearly all detractors (NPS -93).
✓45% of small accounts say they would be likely to choose a monthly subscription if offered: a stated intention about a hypothetical, with no price given.
✓521 of 4,720 invited accounts completed (about 11%); unhappy customers and small accounts may be more likely to respond online.
✓Among accounts booking 100 or more a month (bases 98 and 48), the promoter share moved from 49% to 52%, NPS +38 to +38: not significant.
✓The 69% figure is a share of the 45 detractors who answered the open question, not of all respondents or all customers.

The analysis

Recommendation

Approve live tracking plus proactive delay alerts as the primary investment, coupled with operational action to cut missed and late collections - alerts without better punctuality will only make failures visible. Do not reverse the per-shipment fee wholesale and do not roll out account managers for 20-99 customers on this evidence. Instead price-test and pilot a subscription as an opt-in alternative, targeted first at under-20 monthly shippers where 49.2% say the fee is worse, with guardrails for larger shippers who often prefer per-shipment. Report current Q3 NPS as about +17.7 weighted to the account population, not an 11-point loyalty fall, and treat Ireland as a question for operational destination data, not a concluded problem.

What would change it

A like-for-like tracker (same mode and weighting) and behavioural cohort data showing that a price-tested subscription at a viable price improves retention and revenue net of margin, that churn or repeat booking fell sharply for small accounts after March after allowing for tracking and punctuality failures, that a controlled account-manager pilot for mid-sized or large customers produces gains exceeding its cost, or that large-volume destination KPIs show a material Ireland-specific delay or tracking gap. Any of those would shift the balance toward subscription reversal or expansion, account managers, or an Ireland-specific fix.

Findings

Do not tell the board loyalty fell 11 points: the Q1 to Q3 comparison is not like-for-like, and NPS is stated recommendation, not loyalty or behaviour.

High confidenceBase 521

Q1 2026 was phone interviews by account managers, n=412, NPS +24; Q3 2026 was online, n=521, NPS +12.9 (+13 rounded). Re-weighting Q3 to the Q1 shipment-band mix gives +20.3, only about 3.7 points below Q1, and weighting both waves to the population mix (40% under 20, 42% 20-99, 18% 100+) gives Q3 +17.7 versus Q1 +21.2. The mix also shifted sharply: under-20 accounts were 30% of Q1 respondents but 61% of Q3 and 40% of the population. Any remaining gap is confounded by mode and interviewer effects.
The survey does not show customers want the subscription back wholesale; demand for it is a minority, hypothetical and concentrated in the smallest shippers.

Medium confidenceBase 521

Q5: worse 39.0%, better 20.0%, about the same 29.9%. Q6, subscription as an alternative with no price stated: likely 39.5%, unlikely 36.7%, neither 18.8%. Even among the 203 who said the fee was worse, only 61.6% said they would likely choose a subscription. Q7: lower booking fees was chosen by only 22.6% as a top improvement.
Invest first in live tracking and proactive delay alerts, paired with reducing actual late and missed collections; this is the broadest demand across all segments and the main detractor theme.

High confidenceBase 521

Q7: live tracking 41.3%, delay alerts 34.2%, net either 65.6%; 69.2% of detractors, 69.6% of passives and 58.8% of promoters chose tracking or alerts. Q4 tracking dissatisfaction is 28.6% versus 41.2% satisfied; Q3 punctuality dissatisfaction is 22.4%. In open text, 31 of 45 detractor answers (68.9%) mention tracking/visibility or late/missed collections or deliveries, and 43 of 186 open answers mention tracking/visibility.
The per-shipment fee harm is concentrated in businesses booking under 20 shipments a month; larger shippers more often say the fee is better for them.

Medium confidenceBase 319

Q5 worse versus better: under 20 (n=319) 49.2% worse, 15.0% better, and 44.5% likely to choose a subscription; 20-99 (n=154) 25.3% worse, 26.6% better, 29.9% likely; 100 or more (n=48) 14.6% worse, 31.2% better, 37.5% likely. Under-20 NPS is +5.0 in Q3, down 3.9 points from +8.9 in Q1, not the headline 11 points. For 100+, promoter share moved 49.0% (n=98) to 52.1% (n=48), a 3.1-point difference with standard error about 8.8 points, not significant.
Ireland evidence is far too thin to declare an Ireland problem.

High confidenceBase 14

Only 14 respondents (2.7% of 521) said they ship to the Republic of Ireland; 13 scored 0-6, giving NPS -92.9 on a tiny base with a very wide confidence interval. The 7 Ireland respondents who gave open text cite tracking, late/missed collections and deliveries, and in one case the fee - the same themes as elsewhere - with no Ireland-specific cross-border issue mentioned. Q9 is self-reported.
Protect the fast booking experience and do not fund account managers for mid-sized customers as the main remedy.

Medium confidenceBase 521

79 of 186 open answers praise fast, easy booking, often in about two minutes, which is a core promoter driver; 19.8% of promoters say none of the listed improvements is needed. Q7 account-manager choice is only 14.2% overall and 15.6% for 20-99 a month, the mid-sized group, versus 31.2% for 100 or more (n=48) and 11.0% for under 20.

Caveats

Q3 2026 response was only 521 completions from 4,720 invited accounts (11.0%), online and self-selected; tables are unweighted and the sample oversamples under-20 bookers (61% versus 40% of the population) and undersamples 100+ bookers (9% versus 18%). Weighting by shipment band does not remove other non-response bias.
Q1 and Q3 are not comparable: phone interviews by account managers in Q1 versus online in Q3, different sampling and completion rates (412 from 640 called versus 521 from 4,720 emailed), shipment band from account records in Q1 versus self-report in Q3, and other changes between February and September 2026 confound any causal attribution to the March fee change.
NPS measures stated likelihood to recommend, not loyalty, churn, repeat booking or revenue. No behavioural or financial data were provided to validate a loyalty fall.
Q6 subscription uptake is hypothetical and gives no subscription price, included volume or terms, so it cannot estimate uptake at a viable price, revenue or margin impact. Respondents are the person who books, not necessarily the budget holder.
Q7 is an up-to-two forced choice from a fixed list, not a willingness-to-pay or trade-off test; live tracking and delay alerts overlap, and alerts alone will not improve underlying punctuality.
Open text is 186 of 521 respondents (35.7%), with only 45 detractor answers, so theme mentions are indicative of salience, not population prevalence, and coding involves judgement for borderline answers.
Subgroups are small, especially 100+ in Q3 (n=48, promoter margin about 14 points) and Ireland (n=14). Q5 also includes 7.5% who did not use Quaymark before March 2026 and 3.6% who do not know, so fee comparisons should be read with that base in mind.

Next steps

decisionBuild live tracking and proactive delay alerts and set haulier punctuality actions for missed/late collections, protecting the two-minute booking flow.
experimentPrice-test and pilot a subscription opt-in for under-20 monthly bookers, with a control group and full contribution modelling.
researchRerun the tracker online with the same question, mode and population weighting, with boosts for 100+ bookers and a separately powered Ireland sample if Ireland is to be judged.
researchCheck destination-level operational KPIs for Ireland versus comparable UK routes before any Ireland-specific action.
experimentRun a small controlled account-manager pilot, if pursued at all, for 100+ bookers where stated interest is 31.2% rather than a mid-sized rollout.
monitorMonitor churn, repeat booking and revenue per account by shipment band and pre/post March cohort alongside the next survey.

Open-text themes it coded

Fast, easy booking - about two minutes 79Tracking and visibility - cannot see where shipments are, vague updates, chasing 43Late, missed or delayed collections and deliveries 29Per-shipment fee and subscription cost 21Support hard to reach or slow to reply 6Damage in transit and slow claims 5Neutral, new or insufficient experience - no strong opinion 22

The survey it planned

3 screening questions and 9 questions, as the model wrote them.

S1
Are you the main booking contact for freight at your business?
One answer
- Yes
- No
Continues if Yes
S2
In the last three months, has your business booked at least one shipment through Quaymark?
One answer
- Yes
- No
- Don't know
Continues if Yes
S3
Is your business based in the United Kingdom?
One answer
- Yes
- No
Continues if Yes
Q1
How likely are you to recommend Quaymark to a business colleague or a similar business?
Scale

Scale 1-11: 0 - Not at all likely to 10 - Extremely likely
Q2
What is the main reason for the score you just gave Quaymark?
Open text
Q3
Which of the following have most influenced your experience with Quaymark? Select up to three.
Any that apply
- Cost of booking and fees
- Ease and speed of booking
- Reliability and on-time delivery
- Visibility of shipment progress and tracking
- Customer support when something goes wrong
- Proactive communication about delays or problems
- Having a named Quaymark contact
- Other
Q4
How fair do you think Quaymark's current per-shipment booking fee is?
Scale

Scale 1-5: 1 - Very unfair to 5 - Very fair
Q5
Which of the following would you prefer Quaymark to offer you in future?
One answer
- A fee per shipment
- A monthly subscription
- A choice between a monthly subscription and a fee per shipment
- No preference / don't know
Q6
When did your business first book a shipment through Quaymark?
One answer
- Before March 2026
- In March 2026 or later
- Don't know
Q7
Compared with the monthly subscription you used before March 2026, how does the current per-shipment fee compare for value for money?
One answer
- Better value now
- About the same
- Worse value now
- Don't know
Routing Shown only if Q6 is: Before March 2026

Judges: assumptive
Booking before March 2026 does not establish that the business used the monthly subscription. The display logic therefore does not support the premise that everyone seeing this question used it.
Assumes that everyone who booked a shipment before March 2026 actually used the monthly subscription.
Q8
Please rank the following options from 1 (most important to you) to 3 (least important to you).
Ranking
- Improved online shipment tracking
- Proactive alerts when a shipment is delayed or there is a problem
- A named account manager for your business
Q9
Is there anything else you would like Quaymark to know about your experience?
Open text

Sample plan

Invite the main booking contact at all 4,720 active accounts using a unique account-specific email link (one completed survey per account; responses confidential and not reviewed or followed up by the account manager, and do not use account-manager phone chasing, which would recreate the Q1 mode/interviewer bias). Stratify the frame from the customer database by average shipments per month in the last three months (<20, 20-99, 100+) and set a minimum of 385 completes in each stratum, 1,155 total: for a proportion under the worst-case p=0.5, 95% confidence to +/-5 percentage points requires 1.96 squared x 0.5 x 0.5 / 0.05 squared = 384.2 completes per stratum (apply a finite-population correction only if a stratum frame is itself small). Continue reminders/fieldwork until all three minima are met - 520 completes split evenly (about 173 per stratum) would give only about +/-7.5 percentage points at p=0.5 and cannot meet the board's stated precision, and a proportional split would be worse for smaller strata - so 1,155 (24.5% of 4,720) must be the target unless the board accepts the wider interval. Monitor and re-weight for nonresponse using database shipment volume, tenure and region; report segment estimates unweighted within strata and the overall estimate weighted back to the account population.