2012 Temkin Trust Ratings
April 30, 2012 2 Comments
Temkin Group has just released the 2012
We introduced the Temkin Trust Ratings last year to gauge which companies are earning this important element of loyalty. The 2012 Temkin Trust Ratings include 206 companies from 18 industries and is based on a survey of 10,000 U.S. consumers.
Congratulations to the top firms in this year’s ratings: USAA, credit unions, H.E.B., Publix, Chick-fil-A, Sam’s Club, Hy-Vee and BMW. Of course, not every company has earned such a high degree of trust with their customers, especially the companies at the bottom of the 2012 ratings: Charter Communications, Citigroup, Bank of America, HSBC, Time Warner Cable, Comcast, and Qwest.
We also examined industry averages and found that grocery chains have earned the most trust from consumers followed by investment firms, retailers, and parcel delivery services. But consumers do not trust TV service providers, Internet service providers, or credit card issuers.
We examined how individual companies are rated relative to their industry peers. Twenty-one companies are 10 or more percentage points above their industry averages. The ones that are farthest out in front: USAA (34 above credit cards), credit unions (30 above banks), USAA (28 above banks), USAA (22 above insurers), and PNC (21 above banks).
Twenty-nine companies are at least 10 percentage points behind their industry averages. Here are the ones that fall the farthest behind: Bank of America (23 behind banks), Citibank (22 behind banks), Super 8 (19 behind hotels), Charter Communications (18 behind TV service providers), Days Inn (18 behind hotels), and Citigroup (18 behind credit card issuers).
We also analyzed changes from the 2011 Temkin Trust Ratings. The research shows that consumers are more trusting this year than they were last year. Led by computer makers and insurance carriers, all 12 industries that were in both the 2011 and 2012 Temkin Trust Ratings showed improvement.
Fifty-two of the 139 companies that were in the 2011 and 2012 Temkin Trust Ratings earned double-digit improvements and six companies improved by more than 20 percentage points: USAA, PNC, Lenovo, credit unions, U.S. Bank, and HSBC. Seventeen companies lost ground over the last year with the biggest drops coming for Cox Communications, Bank of America, Citigroup, Edward Jones, TriCare, and Costco.
Do you want to see the data? Go to the Temkin Ratings website where you can sort through all of the results for free. You can even purchase the underlying data if you want to get more access.
The bottom line: It’s hard to succeed without your customers’ trust
About Bruce Temkin, CCXP
Customer Experience Matters® 
Among these companies, which have a long-term retention strategies of their customers? It is interesting to note that companies lowest, are those that also have high rates of churn.
It is good to see the overall improvements in customer trust over the last 12 months, which mirrors how we’ve seen concern for the customer experience move up the priority list for senior management. But as our blog shows, there is still plenty to do if companies are going to continually delight customers and win their trust. http://eptica.wordpress.com/2012/05/01/delivering-the-right-customer-experience/