The Customer Has Spoken: A Decade of Appraisals

In 2004, EnergyPoint Research first set out to discern which oil and gas equipment suppliers and service providers work best for their customers and to quantify their experiences. A decade of collecting and analyzing the relevant data has established EnergyPoint as the resolute voice of the oilfield consumer and the only curator of independent customer satisfaction ratings in the industry.

EnergyPoint started its surveys with the assumptions that customer focus drives best practices and satisfied customers feed growth. Those facts held steady. And as we culled more industry wisdom from end users, we shared with our readers and subscribers a clearer picture of the critical variables companies can focus upon to create satisfied repeat customers. We also offered insights into how customers can influence the performance of their suppliers.

We have also made good on our promise to extract valuable insights from customer data in a changing oil and gas industry. For example, our survey results revealed the inverse relationship between activity levels in the field and customer satisfaction. Amid the bustle and clamor of new frontiers miles beneath arid sands and deeper into the sea floor, and an unprecedented rise in commodity prices, customer opinions of oilfield suppliers dropped.

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EnergyPoint survey results also illuminated high-performance gems that delivered top-notch customer experiences despite phase shifts in expectations. Those companies, including multiple EnergyPoint Research Seal of Excellence™ winners, continue to impress today.

Warp speed evolution in hydrocarbon extraction brought an era of promising new technologies and techniques in an environment that demanded rapid adoption. Only customers could measure their true effectiveness, though. We have worked hard to distill their experiences into revealing metrics and useful analysis.

Survey respondents have also helped pinpoint evolving segments, most notably contract drillers. Over the past 10 years, the best performing of the onshore drillers, Helmerich & Payne, has consistently met or exceeded customers’ expectations, while the group as a whole emerged stronger following an initial ratings lag. A 2013 EnergyPoint Research Customer Satisfaction Award™ honoree, H&P continue to earn top ratings. Ensco enjoys similar status offshore.

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On the more critical side, customers revealed their opinions on less welcomed practices such as the trend among integrated suppliers to bundle their products and services. Customers also helped us parse the difference between bigger and better, with the data often suggesting the divergence was focus.

With the harried pace of industry development, the corporate landscape has changed as much as the oilfield itself. Over the past decade, we have witnessed the loss of segment participants like Global Santa Fe and Wood Group to mergers and acquisitions. Even larger suppliers got swept up in the growth-by-consolidation drift as the “Big Six” morphed into the “Big Four”.

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So far, the overall impact of consolidation on customers, and in turn, the remaining companies’ health, has been somewhat dubious. The shrinking pool of major suppliers in an expanding industry, however, is a story that EnergyPoint Research will follow to see whether and why a benefit to the customer is realized. As it stands, there is some evidence that product suppliers and service providers have pumped the brakes on corporate sprawl — as our analysis has suggested they should — and begun narrowing focus. This is demonstrated by current downsizing efforts at Weatherford International and by other sharpening initiatives in the industry.

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We have tried to connect the dots for participants and investors in the energy sector, providing insight that highlights the impacts overall customer satisfaction and contributing factors such as pricing and health and safety can have on profitability and shareholder returns.

As the only resource for independent oilfield supplier customer satisfaction ratings and analysis, EnergyPoint Research has aimed to deliver digestible doses of industry intelligence backed up by volumes of survey data. We have expanded our coverage and added accolades to honor the highest rated companies that, through their everyday work, exemplify the standards we set out to measure.

Over the next decade and beyond, we will continue to strive to translate industry wisdom that only time and sound empirical data can bring.