Ace Hardware, BJ’s Wholesale Club, and QVC Earn Top Customer Experience Ratings for Retailers

We recently released the 2017 Temkin Experience Ratings that ranks the customer experience of 331 companies across 20 industries based on a survey of 10,000 U.S. consumers.

Ace Hardware, BJ’s Wholesale Club, and QVC deliver the best customer experience in the retail industry, according to the 2017 Temkin Experience Ratings.

Ace, BJ’s, and QVC all tied for the top spot out of the 48 retailers included in this year’s ratings, each earning a score of 81% and coming in 8^th place overall out of 331 companies across 20 industries. Five other retailers received scores that put them in the top 10% of companies for the entire Ratings: Sam’s Club, O’Reilly Auto Parts, True Value, Amazon.com, and Dollar Tree.

True Value, Amazon.com, and O’Reilly Auto Parts Earn Top Customer Experience Ratings for Retailers

We recently released the 2016 Temkin Experience Ratings that ranks the customer experience of 294 companies across 20 industries based on a survey of 10,000 U.S. consumers.

True Value, Amazon.com, and O’Reilly Auto Parts deliver the best customer experience in the retail industry, according to the 2016 Temkin Experience Ratings, an annual ranking of companies based on a survey of 10,000 U.S. consumers.

True Value took the top spot with a rating of 78%, placing it 3^rd overall out of 294 companies across 20 industries. Furthermore, out of the 46 retailers included in the Ratings, it was the only one to improve its score from last year. Amazon.com and O’Reilly Auto Parts tied for the second spot, each earning a rating of 76% and an overall rank of 9^th. QVC and Dollar Tree also made it into the top twenty overall as each received a rating of 75%, which put them both in 12^th place.

At the other end of the spectrum, RadioShack was at the bottom of the list for the sixth straight year, earning a rating of 55% and an overall rank of 199^th.

Overall, the retail industry averaged a 69% rating in the 2016 Temkin Experience Ratings and came in 3^rd place out of 20 industries. The average rating of the retail industry decreased by five percentage-points between 2015 and 2016, dropping from 74% to 69%.

Here are some additional findings from the retail industry:

PetSmart and Amazon Lead Retailers in Customer Experience

We recently released the 2015 Temkin Experience Ratings that ranks the customer experience of 293 companies across 20 industries based on a survey of 10,000 U.S. consumers.

PetSmart and Amazon.com tied for the top spot, each scoring 82%, which put them both in 4^th place overall out of 293 companies across 20 industries. Walgreens came in a close third with a rating of 81% and a ranking of 8^th, while Bed Bath & Beyond, Lowe’s, and Costco all earned 79% and tied for 19^th place overall.

At the other end of the spectrum, RadioShack was at the bottom of the list for the fifth straight year, earning a rating of 63%. Six other retailers earned Temkin Experience Ratings below 70%: Sears, Gap, Best Buy, GameStop, Kmart, and Foot Locker.

Here are some additional findings:

• Retail was one of only five industries to improve its ratings between the 2014 and 2015. The industry average for retailers increased by 1.7 percentage-points.
• Foot Locker (+7 points), Dollar General (+6 points), Walgreens (+5 points), and the Bed Bath & Beyond (+5 points) improved the most between 2014 and 2015.
• Overall, the retail industry averaged a 74% rating in the 2015 Temkin Experience Ratings and came in 3^rd place out of 20 industries. It was also one of only five industries to improve its rating over the past year, increasing its average by 1.7 percentage points.
• True Value (-6 points), Sam’s Club (-5 points), and Best Buy (-5 points) declined the most between 2014 and 2015.

Report: Evaluating Mobile eGift Card Purchasing Experiences

We published a Temkin Group report, Evaluating Mobile eGift Card Purchasing Experiences. The report uses Temkin Group’s SLICE-B experience review methodology to assess the mobile sites of 10 retailers. Here’s the executive summary:

Although smartphones are a convenient interaction channel, their small screens pose serious design challenges for companies. To evaluate the customer experience of mobile websites, we used Temkin Group’s SLICE-B experience review methodology to assess the experience of buying an eGift Card from ten large retailers: Home Depot, Lowe’s, Walmart, Target, Walgreens, CVS, Starbucks, Dunkin’ Donuts, Best Buy, and RadioShack. Home Depot earned the top score for its functionality and minimalist processes, while the user could not complete the full purchasing goal at Lowe’s, Walmart, Target, Walgreens, CVS, Best Buy, or RadioShack.

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The report includes the scores for all 10 companies across each of the six SLICE-B categories, strengths and weaknesses of each retailer, and some best practices across all of the mobile sites. Here is a description of the user and her overall goal that we tested:

Our user was a middle-aged woman looking to send her niece a $25 electronic gift card to help her get settled into her new apartment. While she is reasonably proficient at operating a smartphone, she finds entering a lot of information to be difficult on the small keyboard. She has an iPhone 4s. She does not have an app for any of the companies being evaluated and does not know whether they sell $25 eGift Cards.

Here are the overall results:

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The bottom line: Gift cards should be easier to buy via mobile phones.

Sam’s Club and Amazon.com Lead Retail Industry in 2014 Temkin Experience Ratings

We recently released the 2014 Temkin Experience Ratings that ranks the customer experience of 268 companies across 19 industries based on a survey of 10,000 U.S. consumers.

Sam’s Club and Amazon.com continue their reign as the highest-rated retailers for the third straight year, each earning an “excellent” rating. Sam’s Club narrowly beat out Amazon.com for the top spot, receiving an 81% rating and an overall rank of 8^th out of 268 companies across 19 industries. With ratings of 79% each, Costco, PetSmart, Ace Hardware, and BJ’s Wholesale Club also earned high marks from customers. At the other end of the spectrum, RadioShack and Foot Locker tied for last place among 45 retailers. This is the fourth straight year that RadioShack has been at the bottom of the industry.

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Here are some additional findings from the retail industry:

Report: What Happens After a Good or Bad Experience, 2014

We just published a Temkin Group report, What Happens After a Good or Bad Experience, 2014. The report, which includes 19 data charts, examines which companies and industries provide the most bad experiences, what impact those experiences have on spending, and how the negative impacts of bad experiences can be mitigated by good service recovery. The report also examines how consumers share their good and bad experiences with companies as well as with other people. Here’s the executive summary:

To understand the effect of good and bad experiences, we asked 10,000 U.S. consumers about their recent interactions with 268 companies across 19 industries. Results show that Internet services and TV services are the industries most likely to deliver a bad experience to their customers, while grocery chains are the least likely to. At the company level, Scottrade had the smallest percentage of customers reporting a recent bad experience with the company and Time Warner Cable had the highest. More than half of the customers who encountered a bad experience at a fast food chain, credit card issuer, grocery store, or hotel either decreased their spending with the company or stopped altogether. However, our data shows that a good service recovery effort can help mitigate a bad experience. Unfortunately, many firms—especially in the banking, Internet services, and TV services sectors—aren’t very good at service recovery. In addition to the consequences of bad interactions, we also examined which channels customers use to share their good and bad experiences and how these changed across age groups. We then compared these results to survey responses from the past two years. We also uncovered a negative bias inherent in how customers provide feedback. ING Direct, Residence Inn, and Fairfield Inn have the most negative bias in the feedback they receive directly from customers, while Hy-Vee and Hyundai have the most negative bias on Facebook. 

Click link to see full list of industries and companies covered in this report (.pdf).

Download report for $195

One of the most interesting analyses in the report is the look at how service recovery after a bad experience affects the spending pattern of consumers. Here’s a summary of one of the charts showing just how important it is for a company to recover well after making a mistake:

Here are some other insights from the research:

• Sixteen percent of consumers who have interacted with TV service and Internet service providers report having a bad experience over the previous six months. Next on the list are wireless carriers, with 12% of their customers reporting a bad experience. At the other end of the spectrum, only 3% of consumers report a bad experience with grocery chains and 4% report having a bad experience with fast food chains.
• The five companies with the most customers reporting bad experiences are Time Warner Cable (25%), Motel 6 (22%), Coventry Health Care (21%), and Comcast (21%). There were 10 companies with only 1% or less of their customers reporting bad experiences: Scottrade, Chick-fil-A, H.E.B., Whole Foods, ShopRite, ING Direct, Starbucks, Trader Joe’s, Vanguard, and True Value.
• More than one-quarter of consumers who have a bad experience stop spending with computer makers, car rental agencies, credit card issuers, hotel chains, and software companies. The impact of bad experiences is less costly for parcel delivery services, wireless carriers, health plans, TV service providers, Internet service providers, and grocery chains, as less than 15% of their customers with bad experience stopped spending.
• The industries that are the best at responding to a bad experience are investment firms, major appliances, retailers, and car rental agencies. The industries that are the worst at responding to a bad experience are TV service providers, wireless carriers, Internet service providers, parcel delivery services, and health plans.
• Thirty-two percent of consumers give feedback directly to companies after a very bad experience and 23% give feedback after a very good experience.
• Overall, 25- to 34-year-olds are the most likely to share feedback about their experiences. After a good experience 57% tell a friend directly, 28% share on Facebook, and 18% put a comment or rating on a review site. After a bad experience, 60% tell a friend directly, 31% share on Facebook, and 20% write a review.

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The bottom line: Make sure to recover quickly after a bad experience

USAA On Top of 2013 Temkin Customer Service Ratings

We just released the third annual Temkin Customer Service Ratings of 235 companies across 19 industries based on a study of 10,000 U.S. consumers (see full list of firms).

Download entire dataset for $295

Company Results

Here are some company highlights:

• USAA earned the top two spots for its insurance and banking businesses. Other companies at the top of the ratings are credit unions, Ace Hardware, Charles Schwab, Dollar Tree, Chick-fil-A, Sonic Drive-In, Hy-Vee, Costco, Trader Joe’s, Advantage, Publix, and H.E.B.
• TV service providers and Internet service providers earned nine out of bottom 10 spots in the ratings.
• For the second straight year, Charter Communications took the bottom spot. The rest of the firms in the bottom five are Time Warner Cable, Cox Communications, Optimum (i/o), and CareFirst.
• The following companies earned ratings that were 15 or more points above their industry averages: USAA (insurance and banking), Alaska Airlines, credit unions, Advantage, Kaiser Permanente, TriCare, Charles Schwab, and Bright House Networks.
• Five companies earned ratings that were 15 or more points below their industry averages: Apple Stores, US Airways, RadioShack, HSBC, and 21^st Century.
• Twenty-three percent of companies earned “strong” or “very strong” ratings, while 37% earned “weak” or “very weak” ratings.

Temkin Group also examined year-over-year results for the 171 companies that were in both the 2012 and 2013 Temkin Customer Service Ratings and found that:

• Forty-four percent of companies improved their ratings while 47% experienced a decline.
• Twenty companies showed double-digit increases, led by: Citibank (banking and credit cards), U.S. Bank, Hyundai, Nissan, Old Navy, Charles Schwab, Continental Airlines, and Piggly-Wiggly.
• Eleven companies showed double-digit decreases, led by: LG, Giant Eagle, Toshiba, Cox Communications, ING Direct, and Budget.

Industry Results

Here are some industry highlights:

• Grocery chains, retailers, and fast food chains earned the highest average Temkin Customer Service Ratings, while TV service providers, Internet service providers, wireless carriers, and health plans earned the lowest ratings.
• On average, credit card issuers, banks and fast food restaurants improved the most while appliance makers, TV service providers and investment firms declined the most.

Calculating the Temkin Customer Service Ratings

During January 2013, Temkin Group asked 10,000 U.S. consumers to identify the companies that they had interacted with on their websites during the previous 60 days. These consumers were asked the following question:

Thinking back to your most recent customer service interaction with these companies,
how satisfied were you with the experience?

Responses from 1= “very dissatisfied” to 7= “very satisfied”

For all companies with 100 or more consumer responses, we calculated the “net satisfaction” score. The Temkin Customer Service  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 Customer Service Ratings as ell as all of our other Temkin Ratings and sort through the results, visit the Temkin Ratings website

The bottom line: TV service providers deliver terrible customer service

Amazon and USAA On Top of 2013 Temkin Web Experience Ratings

We just released the third annual Temkin Web Experience Ratings of 211 companies across 19 industries based on a study of 10,000 U.S. consumers (see full list of firms).

Download entire dataset for $295

Company Results

Here are some company highlights:

• For the third straight year, Amazon.com topped the Temkin Web Experience Ratings while USAA took the next two spots for its bank and insurance businesses.
• Other companies at the top of the ratings are Regions, U.S. Bank, eBay, Advantage Rent A Car, credit unions, and QVC.
• At the other end of the spectrum, MSN, Health Net, EarthLink, and Cablevision earned the lowest ratings.
• Only 6% of companies earned “strong” or “very strong” ratings, while 63% earned “weak” or “very weak” ratings.
• Amazon.com and USAA’s insurance business earned ratings that were 20 points above their industry averages and eight other companies were at least 10 points above their peers: Kaiser Permanente, Advantage Rent A Car, eBay, QVC, USAA (bank), Sonic Drive-In, Charles Schwab, and Fidelity Investments.
• Health Net and RadioShack earned ratings that were 20 points or more less than their industry averages and six other companies were at least 15 points below their peers: 21st Century, American Family, Days Inn, Taco Bell, and Kmart.

Temkin Group examined year-over-year results for the 154 companies that were in the 2012 and 2013 ratings and found that:

• Forty-one percent of companies improved, while 53% declined.
• Over half of the companies that were in the 2012 and 2013 ratings earned lower scores this year.
• Eight companies showed double-digit increases: Humana, Old Navy, U.S. Bank, Citibank, TriCare, Blue Shield of California, Toyota, and Safeway.
• Twenty-one companies declined by at least 10 points and six companies dropped by more than 15 points: Southwest Airlines, MSN, United Airlines, ShopRite, Cablevision, and Bright House Networks.

Industry Results

Here are some industry highlights:

• Banks earned the highest average Temkin Web Experience Ratings, followed by investment firms, retailers, credit card issuers, and hotel chains.
• Five industries earned average ratings of “very weak” ratings: Internet service providers, TV service providers, airlines, health plans, and wireless carriers.
• Seven industries improved between 2012 and 2013., while nine declined. Airlines suffered the most dramatic drop, losing 15 points.

Calculating the Temkin Web Experience Ratings

During January 2013, Temkin Group asked 10,000 U.S. consumers to identify the companies that they had interacted with on their websites during the previous 60 days. These consumers were asked the following question:

Thinking back to your most recent interaction with the websites of these companies,
how satisfied were you with the experience?

Responses from 1= “very dissatisfied” to 7= “very satisfied”

For all companies with 100 or more consumer responses, we calculated the “net satisfaction” score. The Temkin Web Experience 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 Trust Ratings as ell as all of our other Temkin Ratings and sort through the results, visit the Temkin Ratings website

The bottom line: Web experiences are heading in the wrong direction.

USAA On Top (Again) in 2013 Temkin Trust Ratings

We just released the third annual Temkin Trust Ratings of 246 companies across 19 industries (see full list).

Download entire dataset for $295

Company Results

For the third straight year, USAA‘s insurance business earned the top ranking in the Temkin Trust Ratings. Here are additional highlights:

• Two of USAA’s business areas —insurance and banking—topped the list of companies. USAA’s credit card business also ranked sixth.
• The other companies in the top 10 of the ratings are credit unions, Publix, H.E.B., Amazon.com, Trader Joe’s, Charles Schwab, and Sam’s Club.
• HSBC earned two of the bottom three spots for its credit card and banking businesses.
• TV service providers and Internet service providers dominate the bottom of the ratings, collectively taking 10 of the bottom 15 spots. The other companies in the bottom 15 are US Airways, CareFirst, and T-Mobile.

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

• Citigroup in credit cards and Hyundai earned the largest jump (21 points) over their 2012 Temkin Trust Ratings. The other largest gainers are Alaska Airlines, Bank of America in credit cards and banking, Continental Airlines, Avis, and EarthLink.
• Cox Communications in TV service and Fifth Third in banking lost the most ground (17 points) since last year. The other largest decliners are HSBC in banking, PNC in banking, JCPenney, Bright House Networks, and eMachines in computers.

Industry Results

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

• Grocery chains earn the most trust while TV service providers earn the least trust from their customers.
• Six companies earned Temkin Trust Ratings that are 20 percentage points or more above their industry average: USAA (banking, credit cards, insurance carriers), credit unions (banking), TriCare (health plans), and Kaiser Permanente (health plans).
• Four companies earned Temkin Trust Ratings that are 20 percentage points or more below their industry average: HSBC (banking and credit cards), US Airways (airlines), 21^st Century (insurance carriers).
• Led by credit card issuers and rental car agencies, 14 of the 18 industries in the 2012 and 2013 Temkin Trust Ratings improved over last year’s scores. The only four industries with declining ratings are TV service providers, retailers, appliance makers, and insurance carriers.

Calculating the Temkin Trust 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:

To what degree do you TRUST that these companies will take care of your needs?
Responses from 1= “do not trust at all” to 7= “completely trust”

For all companies with 100 or more consumer responses, we calculated the “net trust” score. The Temkin Trust 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 Trust Ratings as ell as all of our other Temkin Ratings and sort through the results, visit the Temkin Ratings website

The bottom line: Without a customer’s trust, it’s hard to expect her loyalty.

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.

Sam’s Club and Amazon.com Lead Retail 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 retail industry:

• The average industry rating increased from 71% in 2012 to 74% in 2013.
• Sixteen of the 24 retailers that were in both the 2012 and 2013 ratings showed improvement.
• Three of the top 10 companies across all industries are retailers: Amazon.com and Sam’s Club (tied for #5 overall), and Ace Hardware (#7 overall). Sam’s Club was the leader in 2012 Temkin Experience Ratings and Amazon.com led in 2011.
• Radio Shack is the lowest-rated retailer for the third consecutive year and 191^st overall in 2013. The retailer is also the lowest scoring across all three underlying components, functional, accessible, and emotional.
• Amazon.com and Costco are the top rated in the functional component, Ace Hardware is the top rated in the accessible component, and Nordstrom is the top in the emotional component.
• Office Depot (increase of 11 percentage points) and Barnes & Noble (increase of eight percentage points) made the largest improvements in the industry from 2012.
• JCPenney (decrease of six percentage points), Sam’s Club (decrease of four percentage points), and Lowe’s (decrease of four percentage points) had the largest declines from 2012.
• 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.

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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

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.

Download report for $195

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.

Best Buy Delivers Highest TV Satisfaction

We’re entering into the busiest season for retail sales in the U.S.with Black Friday this week and Cyber Monday next week. One of the key categories during the holiday season is TVs. Retailers plan to sell a lot of them between now and Christmas. So I decided to look into our consumer benchmark data to see which retailers provided the best experience for TV buyers.

I examined data for more than 1,300 consumers who had recently purchased TVs. The analysis compared satisfaction across multiple steps in the process for Best Buy, Walmart, Amazon.com, and other retailers. As you can see in the chart below, Best Buy delivers the best experience across just about every element of the new TV experience.

Interestingly, Best Buy’s largest advantage is in customer service (+10 percentage points), which is the area that has the lowest satisfaction level across all retailers.

The bottom line: Best Buy is the best bet for TVs

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 175 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. 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.

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 175 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