At Newbury Building Society, we believe great service is about more than transactions. It's about taking the time to understand our members and customers, being there when they need us and helping them feel confident about their finances.
That's why we are incredibly proud to be the only bank or building society in the UK to hold the ServiceMark with Distinction accreditation from the Institute of Customer Service, one of the UK's leading independent authorities on customer service standards.
The award, which we have retained since 2022, recognises the commitment of colleagues across the Society who work hard every day to provide a personal, supportive and dependable experience for our members and customers.
The Institute of Customer Service Accreditation is a rigorous independent assessment of how organisations deliver for their customers.
It looks at areas including leadership, culture, employee engagement, customer insight and service delivery to understand how deeply customer focus is embedded throughout a business.
For customers, it offers reassurance that an organisation's service standards have been assessed against nationally recognised benchmarks and that customer experience remains a priority at every level.
Distinction is the highest level of accreditation available through the programme.
To achieve it, organisations must exceed demanding thresholds across both customer and employee measures. Newbury Building Society comfortably exceeded the accreditation benchmarks in all the key areas assessed.
Importantly, Distinction isn't awarded based on a single survey result. It reflects a wider assessment of how effectively an organisation listens to customers, supports colleagues and continuously improves the service it provides.
If you see a UK business (such as a building society, utility provider, or retailer) with an ICS ServiceMark with Distinction, it tells you they are independently verified as being among the best in the country for customer experience, heavily outperforming sector averages.
More than 1,400 customers took part in the latest survey in 2025, giving us an overall customer satisfaction score of 91.6%, an increase on our already exceptionally strong score of 90.5% in 2023.
That score significantly exceeded sector averages:
| Measure | Newbury Building Society | Sector average |
| Overall customer satisfaction | 91.6% | 80% |
| Net Promoter Score (Likelihood to recommend) | 73.9 | 31.0 |
| Customer effort score* | 2.1 | 4.1 |
*For Customer effort, a lower score is better because it means customers find it easier to do business with us.
Overall, our customer satisfaction score was 11.6 points higher than the banks and building societies sector average and 15.5 points higher than the UK all-sector benchmark.
The results showed that Newbury Building Society outperformed the highest-scoring organisations in the latest UK customer satisfaction survey for banks and building societies. Our overall satisfaction score of 91.6% was higher than scores achieved by the largest and most well-known financial providers in the UK.
Our Net Promoter Score, which measures customers' willingness to recommend an organisation to friends and family, also remained above the UK's top-performing financial brands, with Newbury achieving 73.9 compared with the highest reported score of 65.8.
Put simply, they indicate that our members and customers consistently receive a high-quality experience and feel confident recommending us to others.
All customer service measures improved compared with the 2023 survey, and most areas scored well above sector averages.
Customers also rated us highly for:
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Ease of doing business with us.
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The professionalism and helpfulness of our people.
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Their overall experience with the Society.
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Their likelihood to remain a customer and recommend us to others.
The words customers most frequently used to describe their experience included "satisfied", "helpful", "happy", "easy" and "reassured".
The accreditation also assesses the experience of employees, recognising that engaged and supported colleagues are fundamental to delivering excellent customer outcomes.
In our latest employee survey, colleagues gave Newbury Building Society a score of 88.56%, comfortably above the 85% Distinction threshold and significantly higher than both financial services and UK all-sector benchmarks.
Scores across Strategy & Leadership, Culture & Engaged People, and Operational Delivery all exceeded the required accreditation standards.
There's always more we can do
While we're incredibly proud of this achievement, we know there is always more we can do. The survey also provides valuable feedback on where customers would like us to improve, including areas such as digital services and online journeys. We are already working on a number of initiatives that will help make banking with us even easier and more convenient.
A thank you to our customers and colleagues
This achievement and accreditation is only possible because of the trust our members and customers place in us and the dedication of our colleagues across the Society.
As a member-owned building society, we're committed to delivering the personal, caring and dependable service that has defined us for over 170 years.
Achieving and retaining the Customer Service Accreditation with Distinction is a proud milestone, but more importantly, it reflects our ongoing commitment to putting our members and customers first every day.