Ghana’s overall customer satisfaction score dropped sharply to 59 percent in 2025, down from 72 percent the previous year, marking the steepest decline recorded since the Ghana Customer Service Index (GCSI) began tracking national performance.
The dramatic fall pushed Ghana’s customer satisfaction rating from a B grade to a D plus, reflecting worsening consumer experiences across private and public sectors alike. The 13 percentage point decline reversed gains made over recent years and raised concerns about service quality deterioration nationwide.
The Institute of Customer Service Professionals (ICSP), which produces the annual GCSI report, assessed customer experience across 11 key industries using indicators including trust, competence, professionalism, ease of doing business, processes and customer focused innovation. The 2025 survey analyzed feedback from over 5,000 respondents in Accra, Kumasi and other regions.
The insurance sector emerged as the best performing industry despite recording a 71 percent satisfaction score, while the banking sector followed with 61 percent. In contrast, the telecommunications sector ranked lowest at 53 percent, despite being among the most digitized sectors in the economy.
Trust remains the most critical driver of customer satisfaction across all sectors, according to the report. The findings also indicated that higher income earners are increasingly harder to satisfy, preferring high quality service even at higher cost.
Within the banking sector, Stanbic Bank recorded the highest satisfaction score at 76 percent, maintaining its position as a leading performer. Ecobank followed with 64 percent, demonstrating relatively strong customer approval in the financial services industry.
The hospitality sector showed mixed results. Aqua Safari maintained its position as the top performing brand with an 81 percent satisfaction rating, though this marked a decline from 88 percent in 2024. Accra City Hotel followed with 56 percent, reflecting the broader challenges facing consumer facing industries.
Despite ongoing service delivery challenges, utilities ranked among the top four performing sectors in the 2025 index. Ghana Water Limited emerged as the top performer in that sector, surprising analysts who had anticipated poor ratings given persistent complaints about water supply disruptions in major cities.
The index highlighted public sector performance as well. The Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) led public institutions with a 64 percent satisfaction score, followed by the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) at 62 percent. The Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) ranked third among government agencies assessed in the survey.
The telecommunications sector’s 53 percent rating represents a significant concern for an industry that has invested heavily in digital infrastructure. Mobile network operators have faced mounting criticism over network quality, dropped calls, data service interruptions and poor customer support responsiveness.
Yvonne Ohui MacCarthy, founder of ICSP, has previously emphasized the need for businesses and institutions to prioritize continuous improvement and customer focused strategies. The 2025 results suggest those calls have gone largely unheeded, with most sectors showing declines rather than improvements.
The sharp drop from 72 percent in 2024 to 59 percent in 2025 erases progress made since 2021, when Ghana scored 66.26 percent representing a C plus grade. The country had climbed to 73.94 percent in 2023 before slipping to 72 percent in 2024 and now plummeting to 59 percent.
Historical GCSI data shows Ghana’s customer satisfaction performance has been volatile. The 2018 index recorded a general score of C across all economic sectors, with the retail sector achieving the highest grade at B with 73.33 percent. The public sector recorded the least score at 51.85 percent, representing a D grade.
The GCSI serves as a national indicator of customer evaluations of the quality of goods and services patronized by both Ghanaians and non Ghanaians living in Ghana. It measures customer satisfaction, causes, effects and implications across major economic sectors including banking, healthcare, hospitality, insurance, online businesses, public institutions, retail malls, telecommunications, transportation and utilities.
According to ICSP, the findings underscore urgent need for organizations, particularly in utilities, telecommunications and public services, to prioritize service quality, strengthen internal processes and build a customer focused culture to restore confidence and improve satisfaction levels.
The institute has noted that poor customer service costs Ghana’s economy billions of cedis annually. A 2024 analysis highlighted that the services sector, which contributes nearly half of Ghana’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), was sputtering due to inadequate customer service strategies.
The 2025 decline comes at a time when Ghana faces broader economic challenges including inflation, currency depreciation and rising costs of living. These pressures may have contributed to heightened customer expectations and reduced tolerance for poor service delivery.
MacCarthy previously stated that Ghana scoring 72 percent with a B grade was not ideal, especially considering the country achieved 73.94 percent the year before. The latest 59 percent score represents a far more alarming regression that demands immediate attention from business leaders and policymakers.
The GCSI report is a 116 page document providing verified demographic, perceptual and factual data with recommendations and identified trends that can help organizations make data driven decisions. ICSP produces the index through partnership with the Africa Customer Service Research Institute (ACUSRI), a customer service research consulting firm.
Organizations can use the GCSI to identify emerging and long term trends in customer service. The index highlights characteristics and differentiators of highest performing organizations as well as key areas for improvement. ICSP emphasizes the GCSI is not a competitive league table but an independent benchmark and source of knowledge to complement organizational insights about customers.
The metrics used for the survey include look and feel, competence, professionalism, ease of doing business, processes and procedures, customer focused innovations, staff engagement and complaints handling. Respondents evaluate their experiences with companies within various sectors based on services received in recent months.
The model used to produce results embeds customer satisfaction within a series of cause and effect relationships, with several customer experience metrics as the cause and customer loyalty as the effect. This approach allows ICSP to identify not just satisfaction levels but underlying factors driving customer perceptions.
Industry experts suggest several factors may have contributed to the 2025 decline. Economic hardship has reduced service quality as companies cut costs, while staffing shortages in key sectors have lengthened wait times and reduced personalized attention. Additionally, outdated systems and processes in many organizations have failed to keep pace with evolving customer expectations.
The telecommunications sector’s particularly poor performance reflects ongoing frustrations with network reliability and customer service responsiveness. Despite massive investments in fourth generation (4G) and fifth generation (5G) infrastructure, consumers report persistent problems with call quality, data speeds and service interruptions.
Banking sector challenges include long queues at branches, difficult online banking platforms and unresponsive customer support channels. While digital banking has expanded rapidly, many customers report technical glitches, transaction failures and difficulty resolving issues when problems arise.
The hospitality industry faces its own set of challenges including inconsistent service standards, inadequate staff training and failure to maintain facilities to expected standards. Even top performers like Aqua Safari saw satisfaction scores decline, suggesting broader systemic issues affecting the entire sector.
Public sector institutions continue struggling with bureaucratic processes, long wait times and perceived lack of accountability. While GRA and SSNIT achieved relatively strong scores compared to other government agencies, their ratings still fall short of private sector benchmarks in comparable industries.
ICSP has called for a reorientation of frontline service providers on the concept of customer service in the 21st century. The organization stresses that excellent customer service must be made part of Ghana’s cultural fabric rather than an afterthought or add on to business operations.
The institute recommends developing mechanisms and systems that check poor customer service across sectors. This includes establishing clear service standards, implementing regular monitoring and evaluation, providing ongoing staff training and creating consequences for persistent service failures.
For Ghana to reverse the troubling trend and improve its customer satisfaction rating, sustained commitment from both private and public sector leaders will be essential. The 2025 results serve as a wake up call that current approaches are failing customers and undermining economic competitiveness.
