Advantage Rent A Car and USAA Lead in 2013 Temkin Forgiveness Ratings

All companies, even customer experience leaders, make mistakes. But how much goodwill have companies built up for consumers to forgive them after those miscues? To answer this question, Temkin Group surveyed 10,000 U.S. consumers about companies with whom they’ve recently interacted. We used this data for the third annual Temkin Forgiveness Ratings of 246 companies across 19 industries.

Download entire dataset for $295

Company Results

Here are the highlights of the 246 companies in the 2013 Temkin Forgiveness Ratings:

• Advantage earns top spot. With an excellent score of 61%, Advantage earned the highest rating.
• USAA dominates forgiveness. USAA grabbed the next three spots for its banking, insurance, and credit card businesses.
• The rest of the top 10. H.E.B., Blackboard, Aldi, Alaska Airlines, credit unions and Publix round out the top 10
• No industry owns the top. The top 25 companies in the ratings comes form a variety of industries: Four grocery chains, three airlines, three retailers, two banks, two hotel chains, two investment firms, two software firms, one appliance maker, one auto dealer, one credit card issuer, one fast food chain, one health plan, one insurance carrier, and one rental car agency.
• HSBC dominates the bottom. HSBC earned the bottom two spots in the ratings for its credit card and banking businesses.
• Many TV service providers are at the bottom. Six of the bottom 12 companies are TV service providers: Cox Communications, Time Warner Cable, Comcast, Verizon, Charter Communications, and Optimum (iO)/Cablevision.
• USAA most outperforms its peers. We compared company ratings with their industry averages and USAA came in the top three spots, 36 points above in banking, 31 points ahead in credit cards, and 28 points ahead in insurance. Three other companies are more than 20 points above their industry averages: Advantage (car rentals), credit unions (banking), and TriCare (health plans).
• HSBC most underperforms. HSBC fell the farthest below its industry average in two areas, 23 points behind its peers in banking and credit cards. Five other companies had scores that were 15 points and more below their industry: US Airways (airlines), Motel 6 (hotels), McAfee (software), Kia (auto dealers), and Hertz (rental cars).

We also examined year-over-year results for 204 companies that were in both the 2012 and 2013 Temkin Forgiveness Ratings. Here are some highlights of that analysis:

• Chrysler improves the most. With a jump of 29 percentage points, Chrysler is the most improved company.  Six other companies gained 20 points or more: Continental Airlines, Citigroup, Avis, EarthLink, Ameriprise Financial, and Alaska Airlines.
• US Cellular declines the most. With a drop of nearly 20 percentage points, US Cellular dropped the most in 2013.  Nine other companies fell by more than 10 points: Bright House Networks, HSBC, Cox Communications, Hertz, PNC, SunTrust Bank, Dollar Rental Car, Hyatt, and TD Ameritrade.

Industry Results

Here are the highlights of the 19 industries in the 2013 Temkin Forgiveness Ratings:

• TV service providers are unforgivable. TV service providers, as an industry, earned the lowest Temkin Forgiveness Rating of 12%. It was five points below Internet service providers and seven points below wireless carriers.
• Grocery chains are the most forgivable.  With an average rating of 39%, grocery chains are the highest scoring industry. Three industries are just four points behind: hotel chains, auto dealers, and rental car agencies.
• Credit cards make the most improvements. Credit cards made the largest improvement, nine percentage points, over the previous year.  Auto dealers, rental car agencies, and airlines also improved by more than five points.
• TV service providers head in the wrong direction. Led by TV service providers that dropped three points between 2012 and 2013, three industries earned lower scores in 2012. The other industries are retailers and appliance makers.

Calculating the Temkin Forgiveness Ratings

During January 2013, Temkin Group asked consumers to identify companies that they have interacted with during the previous 60 days.  For a random subset of those companies, consumers are asked to rate companies as follows:

How likely are you to forgive these companies if they deliver a bad experience?
Responses from 1= “extremely unlikely” to 7= “extremely likely”

For all companies with 100 or more consumer responses, we calculated the “net forgiveness” score. The Temkin Forgiveness Ratings are calculated by taking the percentage of consumers that selected either “6” or “7” and subtracting the percentage of consumers that selected either “1,” “2,” or “3.”

Download entire dataset for $295

To see all of the companies in the Temkin Forgiveness Ratings as ell as all of our other Temkin Ratings and sort through the results, visit the Temkin Ratings website

The bottom line: Forgiveness is an asset that you accumulate by consistently meeting customer needs.

Alaska Airlines and Southwest Airlines Lead Airline Industry in 2013 Temkin Experience Ratings

We recently released the 2013 Temkin Experience Ratings that ranks the customer experience of 246 companies across 19 industries based on a survey of 10,000 U.S. consumers. Alaska Airlines and Southwest Airlines tied for the top spot in the industry. US Airways and American Airlines, the recently merged companies, ended up as the two lowest rated airlines. As a matter of fact, US Airways is the lowest rated company across any industry. Together, they threaten to become a customer experience mega-monster.

Here are other highlights from the airline industry:

• The average rating for airlines places it at number 15 out of 19 industries.
• The average industry rating remains steady at 60% (in 2012, it was 61%, and in 2011, it was 60%).
• The highest-ranked airlines Alaska Airlines and Southwest Airlines, both with a rating of 68%, eight points above the industry average. Alaska Airlines increased five points from 2012 while Southwest Airlines dropped five points.
• The next airlines in the ratings, in order, are: AirTran Airways (65%), JetBlue (64%), and Delta Airlines (63%).
• Delta Airlines improved five points from the 2012 ratings, tying it for the largest gain in the industry.
• JetBlue has an unusually emotional profile. The airline’s emotional rating is almost eight percentage points above the industry average, but its functional and accessible ratings are less than three points above average.
• Southwest Airlines leads in functional and accessible components and Alaska Airlines leads in the emotional rating.
• US Airways (#246 overall, the lowest rated company) earned a rating of 45%, nine points behind the next lowest scoring American Airlines.
• US Airways had the largest drop since 2012, seven percentage points, and earned the lowest score for all three subcomponents: functional, accessible, and emotional.
• Here’s a link to industry results from the 2012 ratings.

Download entire dataset for $395

Report: 2013 Temkin Experience Ratings

We published the 2013 Temkin Experience Ratings. The report analyzes feedback from 10,000 U.S. consumers to rate 246 organizations across 19 industries. Congratulations to the top firms in this year’s ratings: Publix, Trader Joe’s, Aldi, Chick-fil-A, Amazon.com, and Sam’s Club.

Download report for FREE

You can also download the data for $395.

The Temkin Experience Ratings are based on evaluating three elements of experience:

1. Functional: How well do experiences meet customers’ needs?
2. Accessible: How easy is it for customers to do what they want to do?
3. Emotional: How do customers feel about the experiences?

Here are the top and bottom companies in the ratings:

Here’s how the industries compare with each other:

(NOTE: We have published posts on the detailed results for all 19 industries)

Here are the companies that are leaders and laggards across the 19 industries:

In this year’s ratings, 37% of companies earned “good” or “excellent” scores, while 28% are rated as “poor” or ”very poor.” Companies with at least a “good” rating grew by nine-percentage points since 2012 and by 21-points since 2011. Of the 203 companies that are included in both the 2012 and 2013 Temkin Experience Ratings, 57% firms had at least a modest increase. The companies that made the largest improvement over 2012 are Citibank, TriCare, TD Ameritrade, Office Depot, EarthLink, Hardees, and Regions Bank.

Download report for FREE

Get the Data

Do you want to see all of the data? You can purchase an excel spreadsheet for $395…

To view all of our ratings (experience, loyalty, trust, forgiveness, customer service, and web experience), visit the Temkin Ratings website…

The bottom line: Customer experience is improving, but there’s still a long way to go

American Airlines + US Airways = Worst Customer Experience

As an update to my previous post, American Airlines and US Airways formally announced their merger. According to our 2012 Temkin Ratings, they are the two worst U.S. airlines in customer experience. US Airways actually holds the bottom spot in our experience, loyalty, forgiveness, and trust ratings. By contrast, the recent merger between Southwest Airlines and AirTran represents a combination of the two top airlines in customer experience.

Does this mean that the merger will create a mega-monster in terms of customer experience? Hopefully not. But I recommend that every member of the newly combined management team focus on all four customer experience core competencies:

• Purposeful Leadership
• Compelling Brand Values
• Employee Engagement
• Customer Connectedness

The bottom line: There’s a lot of work ahead for American Airlines and US Airways

American Airlines Needs More Than a New Paint Job

American Airlines recently announced a brand makeover, releasing its new logo and designs for its planes. According to CEO Tom Horton:

“Our new logo and the refreshed exterior of our planes represent more than a change of symbol, but a symbol of change in our path to modernize and innovate“

My take: The company spent millions of dollars on this veneer, but has yet to address its bigger brand issue: Customer experience. The airline can make whatever promises that it wants in its visual identity, but the lasting impressions of its brand are formed by the millions of interactions that customers have with American Airlines every day, whether it’s online, on the phone, at the airport, or in the air. Brands are formed not by the promises we make, but by the promises we keep.

To put American’s customer experience into perspective, it was the next to worst airline in the 2012 Temkin Experience Ratings (only slightly ahead of US Airways, the airline that it is planning to merge with) and rated 187th out of 206 organizations in the ratings. Making matters even worse, it was one of the few companies to show a decline from 2011 to 2012. While we won’t be releasing the 2013 Temkin Experience Ratings for a couple of weeks, I can tell you that American Airlines and US Airways have successfully defended their bottom spots in the airline industry.

Where should American Airlines focus its energy, if not a new logo and some fancy paint on the tail of its planes? Employees. One of the Six Laws of Customer Experience is that unengaged employees don’t create engaged customers. Until American finds a way to get employees on-board, then it will continue to deliver terrible experiences to customers. And there’s no amount of marketing and advertising spending that can make up for a bad experience.

As a vision of what might be possible in the long-term future, take a look at what Southwest Airlines does with employees. With that in mind, Horton and the rest of the American Airlines management team should immediately start focusing on what we call the Five Is of Employee Engagement: Inform, Inspire, Instruct, Involve, and Incent.

As a frequent flyer, I hope that American Airlines figures this out. An upcoming merger with US Airways will hopefully become a catalyst for making signifiant improvements in employee engagement (and ultimately customer experience). If not, this might just be a case of the bad getting bigger.

The bottom line: You can’t paint over poor customer experience

Report: Net Promoter Score Benchmark Study, 2012

We just published a Temkin Group report, Net Promoter Score Benchmark Study, 2012. It provides NPS data on 180 U.S. companies across 19 industries. Here’s the executive summary:

USAA took the top two spots for its banking and insurance businesses while HSBC came in at the bottom for banking and credit cards. Our analysis of differences across consumer demographic segments showed that NPS tends to go up with age, doesn’t vary much by income levels, and is often highest with Asians. We also asked consumers what would make them more likely to recommend the companies and found that promoters are more likely to select lower prices and detractors are more likely to select better customer service. While there is some debate about the efficacy of NPS, our analysis shows that promoters are much more likely than detractors to purchase more in the future across all industries. To help you implement a successful NPS program, we’ve included eight tips such as don’t believe in an “ultimate question” and use control charts, not pinpointed goals.

Download report for $295
(includes the data)

The industries included in this report are airlines, auto dealers, banks, computer makers, credit card issuers, fast food chains, grocery chains, health plans, hotel chains, insurance carriers, Internet service providers, investment firms, major appliance makers, parcel delivery services, rental car agencies, retailers, software firms, TV service providers, and wireless carriers.

The report contains the following components:

• NPS for 180 companies across 19 industries
• NPS differences based on age, income, and ethnicity of consumers
• Improvement areas selected by promoters and detractors by industry
• Connection between NPS and future purchases by industry
• Eight tips for implementing a successful NPS program

Download report for $295
(Includes the data)

The bottom line:  Companies need to give customers a reason to recommend them

2012 Temkin Web Experience Ratings

Temkin Group has just released the 2012
We introduced the Temkin Web Experience Ratings last year. The 2012 Web Experience Ratings include 159 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: Amazon, credit unions, USAA, PNC, Southwest Airlines, eBay, Sam’s Club, ShopRite, JCPenney, and ING Direct. Of course, not every company has earned good web experience, especially the companies at the bottom of the 2012 ratings:  Charter Communications, Humana, Qwest, Cigna, Time Warner Cable, Anthem, Road Runner, Medicare, Blue Shield of CA, and TracFone.

We also  examined industry averages and found that banks and investment firms have earned the highest Temkin Web Experience Ratings followed by hotel chains and retailers. But consumers gave very low ratings to Internet service providers, health plans, and TV service providers.

The research also examines how individual companies are rated relative to their industry peers. The following 11 firms outscored their industry average Temkin Web Experience Ratings by 10 percentage points or more: Kaiser Permanente, Amazon, ShopRite, Southwest Airlines, USAA, Starbucks, H.E.B., Publix, credit unions, Marriott, and Apple.

The following 15 companies fell 10 percentage points or more below their industry averages: Wells Fargo Advisors, AAA, Charter Communications, Delta Airlines, Citibank, Bank of America, Humana, TracFone, Qwest, Old Navy, U.S. Airways, Rite Aid, Kohl’s, Kmart, and Charter Communications.

Temkin Group also analyzed changes from the 2011 Temkin Web Experience Ratings. Led by TV service providers and insurance carriers 11 of the 12 industries that were in both the 2011 and 2012 ratings improved since last year.

Seventy-two percent of companies that were in the 2011 and 2012 Temkin Web Experience Ratings showed improvement. Led by Comcast (Internet and TV service), Allstate, AOL, Charter Communications, Toshiba, and Sam’s Club, 20 companies improved by 10 percentage points or more between 2011 and 2012. Only three companies­— Kohl’s, TracFone, and Rite Aid—declined by 10 percentage points or more during that timeframe.

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: Web experience is not good enough for how important it is

Southwest Provides Best Airline Customer Experience

This post examines the nine airlines included in the 2012 Temkin Experience Ratings.

Southwest Airlines earned the top spot in the industry and received the only “good” rating.  AirTran Airways was ranked second in the industry and earned a rating of “okay” along with JetBlue Airlines and Alaska Airlines. The remaining five airlines earned poor ratings, with US Airways and American Airlines at the bottom.

The overall airline industry, on average, earned the 12^th spot out of 18 industries. The industry made a modest improvement in its overall customer experience ratings between 2011 and 2012. Led by AirTran Airways, Southwest Airlines, and United Airways, five of the eight airlines that were included in both studies showed some improvement. Continental Airlines and American Airlines had the largest declines since last year.

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: There’s a long way to go across the airline industry

American Airlines Needs Some Empathy

I was stuck on the tarmac in Dallas yesterday with my daughter, as American Airlines tried to sort out an issue with the plane. The plane was hot and uncomfortable, yet the flight attendants did nothing to help — no information, no offer of water, nothing — they hung out together at the front of the plane. The only interaction that I saw with a flight attendant was a mean interchange with an understandably frustrated passenger. There were also long gaps of time without any information from the pilot about our situation.

What’s missing? Empathy. Employees didn’t care about the passengers’ experiences.

No airline can completely eliminate issues (like mechanical problems) that cause delays, but they have complete control over how they respond and deal with passengers. It was almost as if the American pilots and flight attendants had no idea how to deal with this situation. That’s unacceptable. If a company can anticipate situations, then they must prepare effective service recovery processes. Employees should be trained (as well as measured, incented, and celebrated) to mitigate these types of situations.

American Airlines should learn our C.A.R.E.S. model of service recovery:

• Communication (clearly communicate the process and set expectations)
• Accountability (take responsibility for fixing the problem or getting an answer)
• Responsiveness (don’t make the customer wait for your communication or a solution)
• Empathy (acknowledge the impact that the situation has on the customer)
• Solution (at the end of the day, make sure to solve the issue or answer the question)

I went online to send American a comment about the experience, but the poor customer experience continued on their Website. Here’s the form that American provided…

Does this look like a genuine request for feedback? The screen is full of stuff that passengers need to fill in BEFORE American will accept any feedback. Why do they need my full address in order to hear that I had a terrible experience.

And, if you look at the upper right hand part of the screen (where you can see my name), American already knows that it’s me. So they already have most of the information that they want me to fill in. With such a terrible system for collecting feedback, it’s not likely that American learns much from its passengers.

Here’s the summary: American treated hundreds of passengers poorly by locking them in a hot plane with no information and no service, and puts significant hurdles in the way of hearing about it.

The bottom line: Service recovery needs to be an institutional skill for airlines

20 Companies Most Susceptible To Negative Comments Via Facebook

In the recent Temkin Group Insight report, How Consumers Give Feedback, we analyzed what US consumers did after they had a very bad or a very good experience. One of the areas we examined was the use of social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter.

As a part of the analysis, we examined the difference in social media use across 141 companies. Our analysis looked at how often people that had interacted with those companies had also used social media to talk about a very bad experience in the previous 60 days. We then compared that data to the overall US average.

This chart shows the 20 companies that interact with consumers who are most likely to post a very bad experience on Facebook.

As you can see, Days Inn, E*TRADE, and Apple are twice as susceptible to having a bad experience show up on Facebook.

The bottom line: These firms need to think a bit more about Facebook than the average company

 

American Airlines Site Showcases Design Of Little Things

I’m a very frequent flier and a heavy user of the American Airlines site. One of the things that has bothered me about the site is the login process. In order for my AAdvantage number to show up during my next visit, the site required me to check a box below the password. If I forgot (which happened often), then I would need to input my AAdvantage number again.

American Airlines recently changed their site to keep the box checked if it was previously checked.

My take: While the login issue was not a big problem, it certainly was an ongoing annoyance. And the solution was relatively easy.

The reason I’m pointing out this change is that it’s an example of a concept that I’ve labeled the Design of Little Things, which are the small changes that can dramatically improve the customer experience of much larger investments.

Companies need to make sure that they keep investing in finding and fixing these little things that cause customers to struggle with an experience.

The bottom line: Don’t underestimate the Design of Little Things.

I Am The Customer Experience… Not!

I’m in the Phoenix airport and noticed this American Airlines sign at one of the gates that says “I am the Customer Experience.”

Naturally, this sign caught my eye. If this is part of a broader effort around employee engagement, then it could be a sign that American Airlines is heading in the right direction. To test how embedded this message was in the hearts and minds of employees, I went up to the first American Airlines employee that I found and “innocently” asked him what the sign meant. His answer:

“I don’t know; it’s just a promo they’re running.”

My take: First of all, I recognize that this is not a statistically significant sample size. So I can’t say that this one response is representative of the larger population of American Airlines employees (although I have a hunch that it is).

But if this is how many employees would respond, then it represents a common issue that I see where companies treat customer experience as a superficial marketing campaign. They think that they can somehow convince customers that they are customer-centric.This is a type of marketing approach that I call “empty promises.”

Compare this to JetBlue’s approach with its “Happy Jetting” campaign.

Marketing efforts, internal or eternal, are most successful if they ring true to their target audience. If American Airlines was actually working with its employees to engage them in a corporate-wide effort to improve customer experience, than a sign like this might be effective. But if it’s an isolated campaign to convince people that American Airlines is more customer-centric than it is, then it’s a truly bad idea. Employees and customers just see another empty promotional campaign.

Don’t forget the 6th law of customer experience: You can’t fake it.

The bottom line: Take customer experience seriously or don’t waste your time

American Airlines Fails In Service Recovery

Yesterday was a real “fun” day. When I arrived at the San Francisco airport at noon for my 1:40 flight, I was informed that the flight was delayed until 7:30 PM. After a few seconds it sunk in — I wasn’t going to make it home last night.

The agent didn’t really answer my questions about what had happened and told me that there weren’t any options on any airline that could get me home any sooner (although she didn’t seem to look very hard). She didn’t apologize and didn’t even seem to notice the enormous inconvenience to me.  

After I told her how horrible the situation was, she gave me some vouchers for free food. As a business traveler with an expense account, this gesture did nothing to dampen the prospects of my 6 hour delay. So I asked if she could at least give me a pass into the Admiral’s Club. She said that she couldn’t do that; all she could do is give me the food vouchers (compare this with my post about Ritz-Carlton).

It turned out that the delay was caused by mechanical problems; so it was totally American Airline’s fault. And the plane ended up leaving even later and I got home at 5:30 AM in the morning — about 7.5 hours later than scheduled.

 Here’s how I’d rate American’s customer service with my C.A.R.E.S. model:

• Communication: D
  The airline didn’t provide much information at all about the situation
• Accountability: E
  The airline didn’t try and do anything proactively to remedy the situation (like getting a plane quicker) or offer any options that lessened the inconvenience
• Responsiveness: D-
  The airline didn’t notify me in advance of the delay and didn’t try to rebook me on another flight. 
• Empathy: D
  The pilot was the only American Airline employee that apologized for the inconvenience.
• Solution: D
  A seven hour delay with no real attempt at remedying the situation for travelers is not an acceptable solution.

To put this in perspective, I’m a Platinum member of American’s loyalty program and am very close to reaching the Executive Platinum level (the airline’s highest level). So this is an indication of how American treats its best customers.

While American Airlines can’t avoid all situations where it inconveniences travelers, it certainly can (and must) do much better job with its service recovery process (responding to problem situations) and improve its corporate culture which is not very customer-centric.

The bottom line:  American Airlines does not seem to care about customer experience.

American Airlines, Customers Deserve Better

I left Boston yesterday (Sunday) to make sure that I was in Kansas for a business meeting today at noon. That seemed like a pretty straightforward proposal, but it turned out to be impossible on American Airlines (AA). Despite going from Boston to Chicago without any problems, AA could not figure out how to get me to Kansas City (KC) today. 

I’m writing this post from KC, early on Monday morning, thanks to Southwest Airlines — more on that later. But this experience reminded me of an earlier post I wrote called The Tale Of Two Airlines: Southwest And American.

AA’s ineptitude could fill up a sizable post, but here are some highlights:

• Chapter 1: The impossible standby

Southwest Airlines Soars Above Its Peers

I’m writing this post as I’m flying to Puerto Rico on America Airlines. Seems like an appropriate time to discuss my new report: Customer Experience Index (CxPi) 2008 Snapshot: Airlines. The research examined the results of the seven airlines in the 2008 CxPi: American Airlines, Continental Airlines, Delta Airlines, Northwest Airlines, Southwest Airlines, United Airlines, and US Airways.

The results are probably not surprising:

• Airline experiences are mostly poor. The average CxPi score for the airlines was 65; on the cusp between an ”okay” and “poor” rating. But six of the seven airlines received “poor” or “very poor” ratings.
• Southwest stands out from the pack. The top scoring airline, Southwest received a CxPi score of 81%; a “good” rating. The next airline on the list, Continental, was a whopping 14 points behind.
• US Airways dissapoints the most. Coming in at the bottom of the list is US Airways, with a “very poor” rating of 50%. That score earned the airline the 103rd spot out of the 113 firms in the CxPi. Northwest was the next to last airline with a 56% score.

It might have been a closer race if we had data for some other airlines like JetBlue and Virgin America. But there’s no doubt that Southwest does things differently than most airlines. The differences start at the top. I often refer to this quote from Herb Kelleher, founder of Southwest Airlines:

If you create an environment where the people truly participate, you don’t need control. They know what needs to be done and they do it. And the more that people will devote themselves to your cause on a voluntary basis, a willing basis, the fewer hierarchies and control mechanisms you need.

The bottom line: The airline industry could use more leaders like Kelleher