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.

Bright House Networks and Dish Network Lead TV Service Providers, Worst 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 parcel TV services industry:

• The overall industry earned the lowest average score of any industry.
• The top TV service providers Bright House Networks and Dish Network (tied for 166^th out of all 246 companies in the ratings across industries) are lower rated than even the worst company in the parcel delivery service, grocery, and fast food industries. While these top two companies earned “okay” ratings, the rest of the companies in the industry earned either “poor” or “very poor” ratings.
• The last place company in the industry, Time Warner Cable, earned the 244^th ranking, tied for next to last across all industries.
• The second-to-last TV service provider, Charter Communications, improved eight points over last year, the largest gain in the industry.
• Cox Communications’ rating decreased six points from 2012, the largest drop in the industry
• Dish Network is the highest rated in the functional component, Optimum (iO)/Cablevision is highest rated in accessible, and Bright House Networks is highest rated in the emotional component.
• Cox Communications has the lowest functional rating while Time Warner Cable has the lowest accessible and emotional ratings.
• The average rating for the industry remained about the same between 2012 and 2013.
• Here’s a link to industry results from the 2012 ratings.

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AOL and Cablevision Lead Internet Service 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 Internet services industry:

• The Internet service industry has the second-lowest average rating . The average score was 55%, tied with health plans. (The lowest-ranked industry was TV service providers.)
• The average score has remained steady over the years, with 53% in 2011, 55% in 2012, and 55% again in 2013.
• Only two ISPs (#123 AOL and #166 Cablevision) are in the “okay” range; the rest are in the “poor” range with scores below 60%.
• EarthLink, which is next to last among ISPs at #227, had an increase of 10 over last year. Next largest gains were by Charter Communications (seven points) and AOL (six points).
• The largest decline since 2012 was Cablevision’s decrease of three points.
• The lowest-ranked ISP, #232 Charter Communications, is tied for fifth-to-last overall.
• Earthlink earned the lowest rating for the functional component, MSN earned the lowest for accessible, and Comcast earned the lowest for emotional.
• Earthlink has an unusual profile with a very weak functional score and a fairly strong emotional one.
• Here’s a link to industry results from the 2012 ratings.

Download entire dataset for $395

Report: What Happens After A Good or Bad Experience?

We just published a Temkin Group report, What Happens After A Good or Bad Experience? This large-scale consumer study uncovers negatively biased feedback and significant upside from good service recovery. Here’s the executive summary:

We asked 5,000 U.S. consumers about their experiences with 179 companies across 19 industries. More than 60% who had a bad experience with a fast food chain, credit card issuer, rental car agency, or hotel cut back on their spending, and many stopped completely. But service recovery helps. For every level of improvement in how they responded to a bad experience, companies were rewarded with more sales. Unfortunately, firms aren’t very good at service recovery, especially banks and credit card issuers. TV service providers delivered the greatest number of bad experiences while grocery chains had the fewest. At a company level, ING Direct and Holiday Inn had the lowest number of bad experiences, while QVC and Best Buy had the highest. We also examined how consumers share their good and bad experiences, across age groups and income levels, and compared results from last year. This analysis uncovered a negative bias in how consumers give feedback. Motel 6, ING Direct, Albertsons, and RadioShack have the most negative bias in the feedback they get directly from customers; Cox Communications and Symantec have the most negative bias in feedback on Facebook; and Verizon and GE face the most negative bias on Twitter.

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The report has 20 graphics full of data on consumer behavior and company ratings. It starts by looking at the prevalence of bad experiences. It turns out that 20% of consumers have had a bad experience with a TV service provider while only 5% have had a bad experience with a grocery store.

One of the streams of analysis looks at how consumers give feedback. As you can see, companies are more likely to hear about bad experiences than good experiences.

Here are some of the other findings in the research:

• ING Direct (2%), Holiday Inn Express (2%) Whole Foods (3%) and Holiday Inn (3%) had the fewest occurrences of bad experience, while Best Buy (29%), QVC (29%), Gap (28%), and eBay (26%) had the most.
• After a bad experience consumers were most likely to completely stop spending with rental car agencies (40%), credit card issuers (39%), computer makers (35%), and auto dealers (35%), but least likely to stop spending with retailers (9%) and Internet service providers (10%).
• When companies responded very poorly after a bad experience, 47% of consumers stopped spending completely with the company. When they had a very good response, only 6% stopped spending and 37% increased their spending.
• Retailers (46%) most often recovered well from a bad experience while Internet service providers (15%) and health plans (15%) were the worst at recovering.
• 38% of consumers gave feedback directly to the company after a very bad experience, but only 31% gave feedback after a very good experience.
• 14% of consumers gave feedback on a rating site like Yelp after both a very good or a very bad experience.
• The use of twitter to communicate about a very bad experience has grown from 4% to 9% of consumers over the last year.
• 33% of 18- to 24-year-olds have posted about a good experience on Facebook, compared with only 5% of those who are 65 and older.
• 18% of 18- to 24-year-olds have tweeted about a good experience, compared with only about 1% of those who are 55 and older.
• 17% of consumers who earn $100K or more have tweeted about a bad experience, compared with only 7% of those who earn less than $50K.
• Given their customer demographics, Motel 6, ING Direct, Albertsons, and RadioShack are the most likely to receive direct customer feedback that is negatively biased while Cablevision, Avis, Nissan dealers, and Dodge dealers are the most likely to receive positively biased feedback.
• Given their customer demographics, Cox Communications, Symantec, ING Direct, and TracFone are the most likely to have negatively biased comments on Facebook, while Cablevision, AOL, Kaiser Permanente, and Holiday Inn are the most likely to have positively biased comments.
• Given their customer demographics, Verizon and GE are the most likely to have negatively biased comments on Twitter, while Avis and Edward Jones are most likely to have positively biased tweets.

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The bottom line: Customer feedback is an under utilized asset.

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.

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(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

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(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

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

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.

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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.

Internet Service and TV Service Lack Customer Experience

This post examines the 11 Internet service providers and the 10 TV service providers included in the 2012 Temkin Experience Ratings.

While the study rated 21 organization across both the TV and Internet services space, only three companies received “okay” ratings: Bright House Networks (TV), Dish Network (TV), and Cablevision (Internet). Fifteen of the companies were rated “poor” and three received “very poor” ratings: Charter Communications (TV), Charter Communications (Internet), and EarthLink (Internet).

The average customer experience ratings for the TV services and Internet services industries placed them 16^th and 17^th, respectively, out of 18 industries in the study. The only companies to score lower were health plans. Out of all 206 companies in the 2012 Temkin Experience Ratings, EarthLink and Charter Communications were the two lowest rated companies and eight of the bottom 19 companies came from these two industries.

Temkin Group analyzed the changes between 2011 and 2012 and found that customer experience made a modest improvement in the TV services industry but had a slight decline with Internet service providers. Seven companies saw their Temkin Experience Ratings increase by more than five percentage points: Cablevision (Internet), Comcast (Internet), AOL (Internet), Dish Network  (TV), Bright House Networks (TV), DirecTV (TV), and Comcast (TV). Only one company had a decline of more than five percentage points: Cox Communications (Internet).

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: Terrible customer experience is an epidemic within Internet services and TV services

Report: 2012 Temkin Experience Ratings

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

We just published a new report, 2012 Temkin Experience Ratings. The report analyzes feedback from 10,000 U.S. consumers to rate 206 organizations across 18 industries. Congratulations to the top firms in this year’s ratings: Sam’s Club, Publix, Starbucks, Subway, Chick-fil-A, Aldi, Winn-Dixie, H.E.B, and credit unions.

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 Experience Ratings.

Here is the executive summary from the report:

Sam’s Club and Publix earned the top two spots in the 2012 Temkin Experience Rankings, with three fast food chains rounding out the top five. We asked 10,000 U.S. consumers to rate their recent interactions with companies across three dimensions of their experience: functional, accessible, and emotional. Their responses allowed us to rate 206 companies across 18 industries. Only 28% of those companies received at least a “good” rating. Grocery chains earned the highest average scores and health plans dominated the bottom of the ratings. Kaiser Permanente and credit unions most outperformed their industries while DHL and RadioShack fell the farthest behind their peers. None of the companies earned an “excellent” rating for the emotional component, while Charter Communications and Earthlink lead 10 companies falling below the “very poor” threshold in that area. Compared with last year’s ratings, most industries improved, led by a 5.3 point average increase by insurance carriers. When it comes to changes over the past year by individual firms, PNC and Lenovo improved the most while Regions Bank had the sharpest decline.

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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 ratings for all 206 companies:

Here’s how the industries compare with each other:

Here are the companies that are leaders across the 18 industries:

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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: Customer experience is improving, but there’s a long way to go

Customer Service Is The Worst Touchpoint

I recently published a report called Experiences Across the Customer Lifecycle that examines how satisfied US consumers are with four interactions (researching a product/service, purchasing a product/service, using a product/service, getting customer service) across 14 industries.

In 12 of the 14 industries, customer service was the lowest (or tied for lowest) rated interaction. Across all four touchpoints, hotels are at the top and health plans are at the bottom. Here are some of the highlights from the analysis:

I also examined how consumers rated individual companies. Here’s a shout-out to the companies that outperformed their industry averages by more than 10 percentage points:

• Researching a product/service: Credit unions, American Express, AT&T, DirecTV, USAA, Amazon.com, Verizon, and Barnes & Noble.
• Purchasing a product/service: Credit unions, American Express, Medicare, Vanguard, Visa, Apple, Aol, Southwest Airlines, and ING Direct.
• Using a product/service: Credit unions, Apple, Medicare, USAA, and Toshiba.
• Getting customer service: Credit unions, Kaiser, Apple, Cox Communications, American Express, Visa, USAA, Barnes & Noble, Marriott, Kohl’s, Southwest Airlines, and Verizon.

The bottom line: The entire customer lifecycle needs and upgrade, especially customer service.

Which Companies Do Consumers Recommend The Most?

I recently published a research report called Consumers’ Likelihood To Recommend 133 Firms that examines how loyal consumers are to 133 firms across 14 industries (the same firms that are in the 2010 Customer Experience Index). Based on surveying more than 4,600 US consumers, I created a metric called Net Recommendations*.

Here are the top 10 firms and their Net Recommendations rates:

• Barnes & Noble (86%)
• Amazon (81%)
• eBay (81%)
• Vanguard (79%)
• Kohl’s (79%)
• USAA (78%)
• Apple (77%)
• BJs Wholesale Club (76%)
• Marriott Hotels & Resorts (75%)
• Costco (75%)

To get a more complete picture of which firms are generating loyal customers, I compared the Net Recommendations score for each company to its industry average. The top five on the list are credit unions, Sun Trust Bank, JetBlue, Vanguard, and Kaiser.  Here are the 25 firms that were 10 points or more above their peers:

 

 

*Net Recommendations: We asked consumers how likely they were to recommend firms to a friend or colleague on a 5-point scale from (1) not at all likely to (5) very likely. To create the Net Recommendations score, we took the percentage of consumers who gave the company a “4″ or “5″ and subtracted the percentage of consumers that gave the company a “1″ or “2.”

The bottom line: Does your business generate enough recommendations?