Muse Wonder: 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: ✗ Not sound
Research score: 95 of 100
Analysis rating: 1,460
Head to head, this task: won 10 of 16

Why it is not sound

The survey

A double-barrelled question: Q7

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?	✓	13	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?	✓	4 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?	✓	1,002	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

Do not reverse the per-shipment fee wholesale and do not announce an 11-point loyalty fall. Prioritise investment in live shipment tracking and proactive delay alerts - the one improvement demanded across every size segment, by detractors and promoters alike, and corroborated by closed questions, unprompted comments and satisfaction gaps. In parallel, relieve the genuine pricing pain where it is concentrated: offer an optional monthly subscription (or equivalent capped/aggregated billing) aimed at sub-20-shipment accounts, tested at a real price, rather than removing per-shipment charging for customers it suits. Do not fund a broad account-manager programme for mid-sized customers on this evidence. Treat Ireland as an urgent operational investigation, not a concluded finding.

What would change it

Evidence that would change this: (1) a like-for-like re-run (same online mode, weighted) showing a real NPS or retention fall after March; (2) transactional/churn data showing sub-20 accounts actually leaving or reducing volume since the fee change, not just disliking it; (3) a priced test (pilot or conjoint) showing subscription take-up and margin at a specific price outweigh the tracking investment; (4) operational data confirming or clearing Ireland punctuality; (5) haulier/telematics feasibility data showing live tracking cannot be delivered reliably - in which case proactive delay alerts and honest ETAs become the priority instead.

Findings

Do not tell the board loyalty fell 11 points. The +24 in Q1 and +13 in Q3 are not like-for-like: Q1 was phone interviews conducted by customers' own account managers, Q3 was an anonymous online survey; mode, interviewer effect, sampling and respondent mix all changed. NPS is also stated likelihood to recommend, not measured loyalty or churn.

High confidenceBase 521

Q1 NPS +24 (n=412, phone, account-manager interviewers, 12 Jan-6 Feb). Q3 NPS +12.9 (35.9% promoters minus 23.0% detractors, n=521 online). Re-weighting Q3 to the Q1 shipments mix gives +20.3, i.e. most of the apparent 11-point gap is explained by mix alone before any mode effect. Among 100+ shippers, promoters were 49.0% in Q1 (n=98) vs 52.1% in Q3 (n=48) - not a significant change at 95%.
The headline Q3 NPS understates the account base because small shippers are heavily over-represented. Weighted to the 4,720 active accounts, NPS is about +18, not +13, and about 1,000 accounts (21%) would be detractors rather than the unweighted 23%.

Medium confidenceBase 521

Sample mix (Q8): <20/month 61.2% (n=319), 20-99 29.6% (n=154), 100+ 9.2% (n=48). Population: 40% / 42% / 18%. Segment NPS: +5, +21, +38. Weighted NPS = 0.40x5 + 0.42x21.4 + 0.18x37.5 = +17.7; weighted detractor share 21.2% x 4,720 = ~1,002 accounts.
Commercial director: customers do not, as a whole, want the per-shipment fee simply reversed - but small shippers do feel hit and would take a subscription option. The problem is segment-specific, not universal.

High confidenceBase 521

Q5: overall 39.0% say per-shipment is worse than subscription, 20.0% better, 29.9% about the same, 7.5% did not use Quaymark pre-March. By size: 'worse' is 49.2% for <20/month (n=319) vs 25.3% for 20-99 and 14.6% for 100+. Q6: only 39.5% overall are fairly/very likely to choose a subscription if offered as an alternative, but 44.5% of <20 shippers and 61.6% of those who say the fee is 'worse' (n=203) would. Only 21 of 186 open-text answers mention the fee at all.
The strongest, most consistent case for investment is shipment visibility: live tracking and proactive delay alerts. This, not price or account managers, is what detractors talk about and what all segments ask for.

High confidenceBase 521

Q4 (visibility): 28.6% dissatisfied vs 22.4% dissatisfied on punctuality (Q3). Among detractors, 48.4% are dissatisfied with visibility (21.7% very + 26.7% fairly) vs 8.0% of promoters. Q7: 65.6% pick live tracking or delay alerts in their top two (72.9% of 100+ shippers); live tracking alone 41.3%, alerts 34.2%. Of the 45 detractors who answered Q2, 68.9% (31) mention tracking or late/missed collections/deliveries unprompted.
Operations director: the Ireland signal is alarming in direction but rests on 14 people - treat it as a trigger to check operational data this week, not as proof of an Ireland problem. Do not quote NPS -93 externally or to the board as a population figure.

Low confidenceBase 14

Ships-to-Ireland base is only n=14 (2.7% of respondents, Q9). 13 of 14 scored 0-6 and none scored 9-10, giving NPS -93, vs +16 for non-Ireland shippers (n=496). A base of 14 cannot support a precise estimate (one respondent = 7 points), and dissatisfied Ireland shippers may have been more likely to respond. The pattern is too extreme to ignore but must be verified against actual Ireland collection/delivery performance data.
A named account manager is not the priority investment, including for mid-sized customers. Demand is low for 20-99 shippers and highest in the segment that is already most loyal.

Medium confidenceBase 521

Q7: named account manager chosen by 14.2% overall, 15.6% of 20-99 shippers (n=154) and 11.0% of <20, vs 31.2% of 100+ shippers (n=48, small base). But 100+ shippers already have NPS +38 and 52.1% promoters. Lower fees (22.6%) and quicker support replies (23.0%) both outrank account managers overall.
Booking speed is a genuine strength to protect in any change. Promoters overwhelmingly praise a two-minute quote-to-booking flow; several detractors and passives praise booking while criticising what happens after collection.

High confidenceBase 186

Dozens of open-text answers across all score bands use near-identical language ('quote and collection booked in a couple of minutes'), including mixed answers such as Q087, Q196, Q323 and Q494 that praise booking and condemn tracking in the same sentence. The failure point is post-collection, not the booking funnel.

Caveats

Non-response: only 521 of 4,720 invited accounts completed the Q3 survey (11.0%; 574 started). Respondents are self-selecting booking contacts; dissatisfied or very satisfied customers may be over-represented and the true population NPS could differ in either direction.
All published Q3 tables are unweighted and the sample is skewed to small shippers (61.2% book <20/month vs 40% of the population). Unweighted segment comparisons and the headline +13 should not be quoted for the account base; the weighted estimate is about +18 NPS and ~1,002 detractor accounts, itself assuming respondents represent non-respondents within each size band.
Q1-to-Q3 trend is not valid: different mode (phone vs online), different interviewers (customers' own account managers in Q1, creating courtesy/social-desirability bias), different samples and different size mix. The 11-point NPS difference cannot be attributed to the March pricing change or to any real change in loyalty.
Small bases: 100+ shippers n=48 in Q3 (promoter share 35.9% overall carries a 95% margin of error of about +/-4.1 points on n=521, and far wider on n=48); Ireland shippers n=14. Percentages on these bases move by several points per respondent.
Open-text evidence rests on 186 of 521 respondents, and the key detractor-tracking figure on only 45 detractor answers. Those who wrote comments are likely to have stronger views; percentages describe commenters, not all customers.
Q5/Q6 measure stated preference, not behaviour: 39.5% saying they would 'likely' choose a subscription does not mean 39.5% would pay for one at any given price, and no price point was tested. Q7 allowed up to two choices, so shares cannot be summed or read as single priorities.
The survey measures perceptions among current active account contacts who had booked in the last three months (screeners S1/S2). It says nothing about churned customers, non-booking colleagues, end customers, or actual operational punctuality.

Next steps

researchVerify Ireland performance from operational systems (collection on-time, transit time, damage by route/haulier) for all Ireland shipments in Q3, and contact the small Ireland customer base directly
experimentBuild and pilot live tracking plus proactive late-running alerts with partner hauliers, starting with the hauliers/routes generating most 'where is it' contacts
experimentPilot an optional monthly subscription (priced) offered to a randomised subset of <20-shipment accounts, keeping per-shipment as the default
monitorFix the survey trend: re-run the recommend question online, anonymously, with the same methodology each wave and report results weighted to the account base, with bases and margins of error
monitorTrack behavioural loyalty alongside NPS: repeat booking, volume and churn by size band and by fee exposure, linked (with consent) to survey responses
decisionReduce avoidable support and claims friction in parallel: publish realistic ETAs, send a delay notification even when live position is unavailable, and set a claims response standard

Open-text themes it coded

Quick, easy, fast booking (often 'a couple of minutes') 78Poor tracking / cannot see where shipments are / vague or missing status updates 42Late or missed collections or deliveries 29Per-shipment fee costs more / want subscription or flat rate back 21Slow, hard-to-reach customer support 6Damaged goods and slow/confusing claims 5Neutral, new, infrequent or no strong opinion 22

The survey it planned

3 screening questions and 10 questions, as the model wrote them.

S1
Are you the main person responsible for booking shipments through Quaymark for your business?
One answer
- Yes
- No
Continues if Yes
S2
Is your business based in the UK?
One answer
- Yes
- No
Continues if Yes
S3
Has your business booked at least one shipment through Quaymark in the last three months?
One answer
- Yes
- No
- Don't know
Continues if Yes
Q1
On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend Quaymark to another 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?
Open text
Q3
In March 2026 Quaymark changed from a monthly subscription (from £25 a month for the smallest accounts) to a booking fee of £3.50 per shipment, reduced for accounts booking 100 or more shipments a month. How would you rate the current per-shipment booking fee for value for money for your business?
Scale

Scale 1-5: Very poor value for money to Very good value for money
Q4
Which of these charging arrangements would you prefer for your business?
One answer
- The current per-shipment booking fee (£3.50 per shipment, reduced for accounts booking 100 or more shipments a month)
- A monthly subscription (from £25 a month for the smallest accounts, as before March 2026)
- I have no preference
- I don't know
Q5
How, if at all, has the change from a monthly subscription to a per-shipment booking fee affected your business's use of Quaymark?
Open text
Q6
Please rank the following possible changes from 1 to 5, where 1 is the change that would matter most to your business and 5 is the change that would matter least.
Ranking
- More accurate, real-time tracking of shipments online
- Proactive alerts when a shipment is delayed, with an updated delivery time
- A named account manager who knows your business and can help with bookings and problems
- Returning to a monthly subscription instead of the per-shipment booking fee
- A wider choice of hauliers and prices when you book
Q7
How satisfied are you with the current accuracy and usefulness of Quaymark's online shipment tracking?
Scale

Scale 1-5: Very dissatisfied to Very satisfied

Judges: double-barrelled
Accuracy and usefulness can receive different ratings but only one answer is allowed. It also requires a satisfaction rating from respondents who may not have used the online tracking, without a not-applicable option.
Asks about tracking 'accuracy' and 'usefulness' together but allows only one rating.
Q8
How satisfied are you with how promptly Quaymark currently tells you when a shipment is delayed?
Scale

Scale 1-5: Very dissatisfied to Very satisfied

Judges: assumptive
Respondents may not have experienced a delayed shipment or delay communications, but must give a satisfaction rating without a not-applicable option.
Assumes the respondent has had a delayed shipment and been told about it. There is no 'not applicable / no delays' option.
Q9
How satisfied are you with the help and support your business currently receives from Quaymark when you have a question or a problem with a shipment?
Scale

Scale 1-5: Very dissatisfied to Very satisfied

Judges: assumptive
Respondents may never have sought or received help with a question or shipment problem, but must give a satisfaction rating without a not-applicable option.
Assumes the business has contacted Quaymark with a question or problem. There is no 'not applicable / haven't needed help' option.
Q10
In a typical month, how many shipments does your business book through Quaymark?
One answer
- Fewer than 20
- 20 to 99
- 100 or more
- Don't know

Sample plan

Census invitation, not a sample: email a unique one-response-per-account link to the main booking contact of all 4,720 UK accounts in the customer database that have booked at least one shipment in the last three months, with up to two reminders to non-respondents. Classify account size primarily from database booking volumes for the last three months, using Q10 as a respondent check and fallback where database data are missing, and monitor completes by size band (fewer than 20, 20 to 99, 100 or more shipments a month) during fieldwork, targeting reminders at under-represented bands. Precision note: estimating a 9-10 share within plus or minus 5 percentage points at 95% confidence requires about 385 completes per size band in the worst case (p=0.5), i.e. about 1,155 completes in total, subject to a finite population correction if a band's population is small. The forecast of about 520 completes (roughly 173 per band if evenly split) would give only about plus or minus 7.5 percentage points per band, so fieldwork should be extended and reminders/incentives used to approach 385 per band; if that is not achieved, report the achieved margin of error for each band and do not claim the plus or minus 5 point precision. Check respondents against the invited population on account size and booking frequency and report any non-response bias; do not cap completes in any band.