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.

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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.”

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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.

Credit Unions and USAA Lead Banks 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. Here are highlights from the banking industry:

• The banking industry has been steadily improving over the last three years, from an average Temkin Experience Rating of 62.0% in 2011 to 68.6% this year. Banks also made the largest improvement of any industry between 2012 and 2013, gaining 3.4 percentage points.
• Credit unions take first place in the industry for the second straight year with a rating of 79%. USAA earned the second spot with a rating of 78% followed by ING Direct and TD Bank that tied for third place with ratings of 74%.
• The lowest-ranked bank is HSBC, earning a score of 57%. It also earned the lowest functional, accessible, and emotional ratings. The two next lowest banks are Capital One (62%) and Bank of America (63%).
• Credit unions lead in the functional and accessible components while USAA leads in the emotional component.
• Citibank improved by 15 percentage points between 2012 and 2013. This gain represents the largest improvement by any company across all industries.
• Regions also had a significant improvement of 10 percentage points over the last year.
• PNC had the worst decline from 2012 to 2013, experiencing a loss of six percentage points. HSBC was the only other bank with a ratings drop since last year.
• Here’s a link to industry results from the 2012 ratings.

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USAA and State Farm Lead Insurance 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. Here are highlights from the insurance industry:

• The industry has been steadily improving over the last three years, from an average rating of 58.5% in 2011 to 65.0% in 2013.
• USAA is the highest-ranked insurance company at 77% and State Farm is second with a rating of 73%. These two insurers held the same position last year and USAA has been atop the industry for all three years of the ratings. These are the only two insurers with “good” ratings. Nationwide is in third place at 68%.
• USAA earned the top marks across all three components, functional, accessible, and emotional and State Farm earned the second highest marks across all three areas.
• 21st Century earned the last place in the industry with a rating of 49%. The insurer earned the lowest marks across all three components, functional, accessible, and emotional. It was next to last in the industry in the 2012 Temkin Experience Ratings and last place in the 2011 Temkin Experience Ratings.
• Liberty Mutual is in next to last place with a rating of 56%.
• Travelers improved the most between 2012 and 2013, gaining six percentage points. Next on the list, MetLife and USAA improved by four percentage points.
• The Hartford and 21st Century had the largest decline from 2012, losing seven percentage points.
• 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.

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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.

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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

Companies Don’t Earn The Loyalty Their CX Deserves

Our report The ROI of Customer Experience shows that customer experience is highly correlated to loyalty. The research analyzed the relationship between Temkin Loyalty Ratings and Temkin Experience Ratings (TER) for 206 U.S. companies.

After analyzing the connection between these ratings, we found that some companies seem to have higher loyalty levels than they seem to deserve based on their customer experience while others have lower loyalty levels.

Using that dataset, I compared actual loyalty levels with projected loyalty levels. How? By plugging each company’s experience rating into our regression model to identify what their loyalty rating should be (normalized to their industry average) based on its TER and compared that projected rating with its actual loyalty rating. In the chart below you can see the companies with the largest positive and negative variances from the model’s projections.

The companies with loyalty levels the most above the projections are USAA, Highmark, Medicaid, credit unions, and TriCare. The companies that fall the most below the projections are T-Mobile, BMW, Bosch, AT&T, and Alamo.

Let’s examine USAA as an example. Since it has very high experience ratings compared with its industry peers, our model projects that its loyalty ratings should be at the high end of banks, credit card issuers, and insurance carriers. This analysis shows that USAA’s actual loyalty levels are higher than expected, even after factoring in its wonderful customer experience.

So what?!? There’s nothing inherently good or bad with being above or below the projected loyalty level. There’s no reason to expect companies to fall directly on their projected loyalty levels.

What’s interesting about this analysis is not what’s good or bad, but WHY are some companies so far away from the projected levels. This is where I’ll leave the data behind and offer my interpretation about WHY some companies have higher than projected loyalty while others have lower than projected loyalty:

• Product fit. CX is not the only component of customer value. Companies that have tailored their products and services to better meet customers’needs (like USAA and TriCare) have an even better loyalty level than their CX would suggest. If companies have a poor product offering, then their loyalty may be lower than projected (this may explain Sears and DHL).
• Product quality. If companies have quality problems with their offerings, then they would have lower loyalty levels than their CX deserve (this may explain AT&T, T-Mobile, and Alamo).
• Service expectations. Companies that have premium status (BMW cars and Bosch appliances) often elicit higher expectations from customers, so they don’t earn the loyalty that their CX would suggest and have to work harder.
• Trapped customers. In industries where customers have a hard time switching, a bad experience may not lead to the loyalty decline anticipated by the model; the same type of situation would occur if a company is harder to move away from than it’s competitors (this may explain Medicaid, Medicare, MSN, and EarthLink).
• Commoditization. In industries that have a lot of pricing comparisons, customers may overly focus on price and not award good customer experience with the level of loyalty that the model projects (this may explain Alamo). It can also push consumers that have poor experience to more quickly leave a company for its competitor (this may explain DHL).
• Substitutions. In sitations where customers don’t have a lot of clear alternatives, they will be more loyal to a company than the model suggests (this may explain eBay). A company that relies on self-service may be seen as easier to move from than a company that forms more personal connections with customers (this may explain E*TRADE).
• Emotionality. Sometimes customers develop a strong affinity for a brand that increases loyalty and dampens the negative effect of any poor experiences (this may explain Southwest Airlines and Apple).

These items cover three broad topics: offerings, competitive environment and customer expectations. What do you think causes companies to earn more or less loyalty than their customer experience seems to deserve?

The bottom line: CX is correlated to loyalty, but other things matter as well

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

Customer Experience Isn’t Enough in Banking

I read an interesting article in the New York Times: Bank Analyst Sees No Payoff in a Customer-Friendly Focus. It discusses how bank industry analyst Richard X. Bove believes that focussing on customers may be harmful for banks because it distracts them from making money. Here’s a bit of what he said:

Spending time solving problems with people is not selling products. It’s wasting time.

My take: First of all, I think that Bove is partially right. If you don’t have good products or if you don’t have solid sales processes, then you probably won’t have good business results; customer experience is not good enough on its own. As I’ve said for many years, customer experience is not a standalone activity, it needs to support your brand and business strategy.

Having said that, our research shows that companies with better customer experience have a better opportunity to improve their business results. That relationship holds up in our research across many industries.

I decided to take a look at one dimension of the Temkin Experience Ratings (easiness of doing business) and one dimension from the Temkin Loyalty Ratings (willingness to consider for another purchase) in banking. Here’s how those CX and loyalty items line up for 16 banks.

As you can see, there’s a high correlation between CX and potential loyalty. Just because 74% of USAA’s members are likely to consider the financial institution for another purchase, they aren’t going to do it unless USAA offers them an appropriate and competitive product.

The bottom line: CX is valuable, but not enough on its own

Debriefing the CXPA Members Insight Exchange

Don’t miss the 2013 Members Insight Exchange
in San Diego on May 14th and 15th

I just finished two fantastic days in San Diego at the gorgeous Hotel Del Coronado for the CXPA Members Insight Exchange. As with last year’s event, there was a ton of energy throughout the two days. And there should be. We’ve just crossed 1,500 members and there are great things going on across the Customer Experience Professionals Association (CXPA).

Here’s one of the slides that we used to kick off the event that provides a good sense of what the CXPA is all about:

Since Jeanne Bliss and I were leading the event, I did not get to see all of the sessions. But here are some of my observations from what I was able to take in:

• It’s easy to grow apart from your customers. Simon Lowe, Director, Field Operations discussed a phase of growth where 1-800-GET-JUNK ran into problems. His assessment: “The bigger and faster we grew, the further away we became from our customers. Our customers became ‘jobs.’” Ray Davis, CEO of UmPQUA bank, had this to say about the topic: ” Bureaucracy and processes take over when you grow for growth’s sake, and that’s the kiss of death.”
• Even junk can drive loyalty. Lowe talked about how 1-800-GOT-JUNK ran into some problems after a fast growth spurt. The company realized that “Loyalty comes from listening and acting on the feedback given.” They also found that “Satisfied customers will not grow our business. Loyal, enthusiastic raving ‘promoters’ grow businesses.” They looked at how many customers repeated business with them in from 2010 to 2011: 4% of detractors, 8% of passives, and 18% of promoters.
• Life is empty without purpose. Neff Hudson, USAA’s AVP of Emerging Channels, discussed one of USAA’s three pillars: “Make it about a bigger vision.” The company’s mission it at the heart of all it does: “…facilitate the financial security of its members, associates, and their families through provision of a full range of highly competitive financial products and services…” Ingrid Lindberg from Prime Therapeutics shared this thought: “Everyone wants to be part of something bigger, but you have to help them figure out how they fit.”
• Engage thy employees. Davis says that UMPQUA’s front line employees “make every and any decisions on customer service.” He also said “if you empower people and have their backs, they won’t abuse it. If a few do, then you just need to get rid of them.” Anna Elwood, Director of Operations at medical visit scheduling company ZocDoc, talked about how her company’s performance reviews are focused on “living the values.” Lowe says this about 1-800-GOT-JUNK: “To differentiate our customer experience, first we improved our relationship with our employees.” Andrew Smith, VP of Customer Experience and Strategy at Signature HealthCARE talked about how his company is embedding its service values in hiring, on-boarding, training, daily stand-up meetings, and almost all elements of its human resource efforts.
• Mobile, mobile, did I mention mobile? Many speakers mentioned the current or upcoming impact that mobile will have on their business. Hudson provided some compelling numbers for USAA: Between 2011 and 2016, USAA expects the volume of mobile interactions to grow from 192 million to over 1 billion, and represent over half of all USAA interactions. As a matter of fact, the company expects digital interactions to be around 20x its traditional call center volume in that timeframe.
• You can’t know your customer well enough. One of USAA’s three pillars is “know our members.” And they do. Hudson talked about how a member may call in to change his address, but the reps are trained to understand “why” and deal with bigger issues. If the call is from a soldier who is about to be deployed, then the rep might check to see if the member has thought about items such as a will, power of attorney, and life insurance. The rep might even put a hold on the member’s car insurance, so he doesn’t have to pay if it’s not going to be used while he’s deployed. Lowe from 1-800-GOT-JUNK said “loyalty comes from listening and acting on the feedback given.” The company has identified that customers are interested in different value statements, so it teaches employees to recognize and sell towards that value statement.
• CX innovation is blossoming. Throughout the event, we heard from CX practitioners who are finding new ways to help their organizations build loyalty by delivering outstanding experiences. For instance, the “Member Show & Tell” highlighted 16 different tools that members are successfully using. We also announced the 2012 CX Innovation Award winners: Copart, Fidelity Investments, ICW Group, Memorial Health Systems, PHH, UnitedHealth Group (congratulations!). These companies were judged as the best out of almost 100 nominations. We also heard from six vendors that were selected from nominees to participate in vendor innovation presentations: Allegiance, Confirmit, Ipsos Loyalty, PeriscopeIQ, PwC Advisory Services, and The Service Profit Chain Institute.
• CX professionals can shake their booties. A great group of highly engaged attendees dug into the content, shared with each other, and took every opportunity to have fun. Then we took it out to the beach for letting loose with drinks, fire pits, and S’mores. On the second day, we got most of the group to stand up and dance to the CXPA’s newest theme song “C-X-P-A.”
• We have great volunteers.As a non-profit organization, we are reliant on our members to give their time. And many of them have done fantastic work for the association. We gave a special shout out to those member for their great dedication: Dorsey McGlone, Kim Proctor, Desirree Madison-Biggs, Erin Kelly, Amy McCarty, Yvonne Nomizu, Karl Sharicz, Daryl Travis, and Michelle Romanica. In addition, we awarded three members with the 2012 “CXPA Extra Mile” award: Mike Wittenstein, Dawna MacLean, and Diane Simmons (congratulations!).
• This is YOUR CXPA. With 1,500 members in its community, the CXPA has established itself as THE professional association for customer experience professionals. This non-profit organization is already helping members learn share best practices, network with each other, and raise the visibility of CX as a thriving, critical professional discipline. We become stronger and more valuable for the entire community as we grow, so join us.

Here’s a scene from the “Show & Tell” session where attendees rotated across tables as practitioners discussed CX tools that they use.

Here’s a scene from the beach party:

You can catch some of the action on the CXPA’s YouTube Channel.

The bottom line: Don’t miss next year’s CXPA Members Insight Exchange

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

2012 Temkin Trust Ratings

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

2012 Temkin Forgiveness Ratings

Temkin Group has just released the 2012
Every company makes mistakes now and then, but how willing are customers to forgive the company when it happens? Forgiveness is a valuable asset that companies earn by consistently meeting customers’ needs.

We introduced the Temkin Forgiveness Ratings last year to gauge which companies are earning this important element of loyalty. The 2012 Temkin Forgiveness 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, Hyatt, credit unions, H.E.B., Hy-Vee, Dollar Rent A Car, Chick-fil-A, Publix, Costco, and Amazon.com. Of course, not every company enjoys such a high degree of forgiveness from their customers, especially the companies at the bottom of the 2012 ratings: Citigroup, Charter Communications, HSBC, Chrysler dealers, EarthLink, Bank of America, Comcast, Quest, and US Airways.

We also examined industry averages and found that grocery chains have earned the most forgiveness from consumers followed by retailers, appliance makers, and parcel delivery services. But consumers are not very likely to forgive mistakes by credit card issuers, Internet service providers, and TV service providers.

We examined how individual companies are rated relative to their industry peers. USAA holds the top two spots, outpacing its credit card and banking peers by more than 30 percentage points. USAA also outpaces the insurance industry by more than 20 percentage points. Credit unions, Hyatt, US Cellular, Dollar Rent A Car, Chick-fil-A, and Bright House Networks are also more than 15 percentage points above their industry averages. Five companies fall 15 or more percentage points below their industry’s average Temkin Forgiveness Ratings: Chrysler dealers, Citigroup, Travelers, Charter Communications, and RadioShack.

We also analyzed changes from the 2011 Temkin Forgiveness Ratings. The research shows that consumers are more forgiving this year than they were last year. Led by banks and insurance carriers, all 12 industries that were in both the 2011 and 2012 Temkin Forgiveness Ratings showed improvement.
Sixty-eight of the 139 companies that were in the 2011 and 2012 Temkin Forgiveness Ratings earned double-digit improvements and four companies improved by more than 25 percentage points: TD Ameritrade, Lenovo, USAA, and credit unions. Ten companies lost ground over the last year with the biggest drops coming for Citigroup, Continental Airlines, Travelers, Sears, Holiday Inn Express, and The Hartford.

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: To err is possible, to earn forgiveness is divine

Temkin Experience Ratings Spotlight: USAA

Almost any discussion about companies that deliver great customer experience has to include USAA. The financial services firm that serves the military and their families earned industry-leading scores in credit cards and insurance in the 2012 Temkin Experience Ratings and in last year’s ratings as well.

In 2011, USAA consolidated all of its customer interaction groups into a single organization, Member Experience. Previously, USAA’s product businesses had their own sales and service arms. By bringing together all of those customer-facing groups, USAA hopes to deliver even more cohesive experiences to members.

To find out how this customer experience powerhouse approaches customer experience, I spoke with Wayne Peacock, Executive Vice President of Member Experience at USAA. Here is a synopsis of our Q&A:

1) What do you think makes USAA a perennial customer experience leader?

It comes down to our core DNA. We are a mission-driven organization. Everything we talk about is focused on helping military families with their financial security. Everyone in our organization has an intense focus on serving our members. It’s our true “North Star” that allows us to do things differently.

We also have a relentless corporate focus on delivering exceptional service and experiences for our members. We continuously look at opportunities to improve and innovate around serving members. There’s nothing exciting or sophisticated, we just stay true to our mission and core purpose all the time.

Every day, 200 thousand members call us and a passionate, empathetic employee tries to help them. At an atomic level, everything flows from those individual interactions and the other contacts that members have through our online channels.

We want to run a healthy financial business so we invest in our future, but our internal score keeping is clear and direct: our key objective is to help our members do better in life. It’s what we recognize and reward, and it manifests itself in how we hire and train our employees. We use the term “surround sound” to mean that we bring the needs of military to life throughout our organization. We hire a lot of ex-military, bring military members into the building, take employees to military installations so they can see and feel the real life situations of our members, just to name a few examples.

2) What things do you personally track to tell if USAA is veering even slightly off course?

We look at, and set a high bar, on metrics around member satisfaction, advocacy, and loyalty. We are not satisfied just weeding out defects. We examine what highly satisfied members are telling us so that we can replicate it across our organization. It’s about the decomposition of what we do well and what we don’t do so well to ensure that we stay on course.

I believe that you have to touch and feel the customer experience and have a sense for what’s going on. I spend my time, and I ask my leaders to spend a few hours a month, shadowing a front-line employee.  Sitting in a cubicle beside a rep  and listening to the member call through the headset. I am always asking people about their experiences with USAA.

Member satisfaction at a transactional level is our key metric. We measure it by product, geography, and channel and are working on a cross-channel measurement. We use a 10-point satisfaction scale and consider only the top-two boxes as acceptable scores. We examine problems for any score that is six or lower.

We are also  improving our social media listening.

3) What projects or initiatives at USAA are you most excited about in terms of its impact on future customer experience?

How we use insight to inform action is a critical competence that we need to be excellent at. And one of the underpinnings of that is analytics. I’m interested in emerging opportunities to bring big data into our environment–to use insight at the point of service or sales to direct that experience.

The single interchange between members and USAA is working every day but the ability to connect across those individual conversations is what we are working on. How do you link a conversation that might span over a month or two? And then how do we use behavior and analytics to shape the next conversation so we are relevant and personalized for what they want to do next?

We want to create experiences around what members are trying to accomplish, not just our products. If a member is buying a car, then we would historically see that as a change in auto insurance. We are changing that to an auto event – to help the member find the right car, buy it at a discount, get a loan, insurance, etc. and do that in any channel and across channels. There’s enormous value for members and for USAA if we can facilitate  that entire experience.

We are also continuing our journey around cross-channel experience. We are finding ways to allow customers to seamlessly move across channels and have us move with them, from marketing campaigns to sales and service at our Website, mobile apps, or contact center.

Mobile is also a key area of focus for us as the proliferation of mobile phones and tablets increases. We see mobile as a key entry point into USAA. We are working to digitize and miniaturize all of our business processes to be effective on a 3.5-inch screen. We’ve already built great capabilities  like deposit@mobile.  In the future, people are going to manage their lives through mobile devices. We want to establish a mobile-first mindset at USAA.

4) What advice do you have for customer experience executives at other companies that are leading transformation efforts in an attempt to become a customer experience leader like USAA?

Start with getting clear on the purpose of your organization. If you don’t have a true North Star, then you can’t get aligned.

You have to win the hearts and minds of your employees. Get the front-line people excited about what you’re doing and find a cadre of leaders that will buy into the vision and be advocates for the changes. Our front-line folks saw what we were trying to accomplish by aligning our member interaction functions into one organization; they saw how it would be beneficial to members and could provide additional career paths for them.

And remember to celebrate your early wins.

The bottom line: USAA wins through its unwavering purpose, member-centric culture, and a relentless desire to improve.

Sam’s Club Is Easiest To Work With, Health Plans Are Most Difficult

We recently published the 2012 Temkin Experience Ratings that ranks the customer experience of 206 companies across 18 industries based on a survey of 10,000 U.S., companies. The ratings are based on three components of experience: functional, accessible, and emotional.

I examined the results for one of those element, accessible, to see which companies are the easiest and least easy to work with. As you can see below, Sam’s Club is the easiest company to work with, but there are several other firms like Publix, Subway, Lowe’s, and Aldi with excellent ratings in this area.

At the other side of the easiness spectrum, Medicaid, Charter Communications (TV and internet service), Empire BCBS, Earthlink, Highmark BCBS, Health Net, and MSN all receive “very poor” ratings. Four out of the eight hardest companies to work with are health plans.

The bottom line: There’s no excuse for being difficult to work with

USAA and Credit Unions Are Highly Recommended

The 2012 Temkin Loyalty Ratings quantifies the loyalty of consumers to 206 companies across 18 industries based on a survey of 10,000 U.S. consumers. I examined one of the three elements of loyalty in the ratings: the likelihood to recommend.

When comparing company ratings to industry averages, it turns out that USAA earns the top two spots. In credit cards and banking, USAA’s Temkin Loyalty Ratings are at least 25 percentage points above their industry averages. Credit unions are next in line, 24 points above the banking average.

At the bottom of the list is Charter Communications, 23 points below the TV service industry average. RadioShack and Citibank also fall far behind their industries.

The bottom line: Will your customers recommend your firm?

Report: 2012 Temkin Loyalty Ratings

Access the data from all Temkin Ratings research at the Temkin Ratings website.

We just published a new Temkin Group report, 2012 Temkin Loyalty Ratings. The report analyzes feedback from 10,000 U.S. consumers to rate their loyalty to 206 organizations across 18 industries. Congratulations to the top firms in this year’s ratings: Sam’s Club, Aldi, USAA, Publix, credit unions, and Amazon.com.

We added six industries (fast food chains, grocery chains, major appliances, car rental agencies, auto dealers, and parcel delivery services) and 63 companies compared with the 2011 Temkin Loyalty Ratings.

Here is the executive summary from the report:

Sam’s Club, Aldi, and USAA earned the top spots in the 2012 Temkin Loyalty Ratings while Citigroup (banking and credit cards) and Charter Communications (TV service and Internet service) each show up twice in the bottom four. We asked 10,000 U.S. consumers to rate their loyalty to companies across three dimensions: likely to recommend, reluctant to switch, and willing to repurchase. Their responses allowed us to rate the loyalty of customers to 206 companies across 18 industries. One-quarter of companies have “strong” or “very strong” ratings while 50% have “weak” or “very weak” ratings. At an industry level, grocery chains and retailers have the most loyal customers while internet service providers and TV service providers have the least loyal customers. USAA has the most loyal customers across three industries, banking, insurance, and credit cards. When comparing the results from the 2011 and 2012 Temkin Loyalty Ratings, we find that PNC and USAA improved the most and Kohl’s and Hyatt declined the most.

Download report for $195

The Temkin Loyalty Ratings are based on evaluating three components of loyalty:

1. Recommending: How likely are consumers to recommend the company to friends and colleagues?
2. Switching: How reluctant are consumers to switch business away from the company?
3. Repurchasing: How willing are customers to purchase additional products and services from the company?

Here are the ratings for all 206 companies:

Here’s how the industries compare with each other:

Here are some other highlights from the research:

• USAA (in their banking and credit card divisions) as well as credit unions (banking) outpaced their industry peers by more than 25 percentage points.
• DHL and RadioShack are the furthest behind their peers, falling more than 20 percentage points below their industry averages.
• Across the 12 industries we examined in both years, nine earned higher loyalty scores in 2012 and three showed a decline. Computer makers are at the top of the list of gainers while retailers had the largest decline.
• Of the 139 companies that are included in both the 2011 and 2012 Temkin Loyalty Ratings, 84 firms made at least a small improvement in their scores. Led by PNC and USAA, 19 companies earned double-digit improvements over the last year.
• Kohl’s and Hyatt are the only companies that declined by more than 10 percentage points over the previous year.

Download report for $195

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: Consumer loyalty remains up for grabs across most industries.