Courtyard By Marriott Earns Top Customer Experience Ratings for Hotels

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.

Courtyard By Marriott delivers the best customer experience in the Hotels industry, according to the 2017 Temkin Experience Ratings, an annual customer experience ranking of companies based on a survey of 10,000 U.S. consumers.

Courtyard By Marriott took the top spot out of the 23 hotels included in this year’s ratings, earning a score of 77% and coming in 38^th place overall out of 331 companies across 20 industries. Fairfield Inn, Marriott, and Radisson all tied for second place, each with a rating of 76% and a rank of 47^th overall.

H-E-B and Trader Joe’s Earn Highest Emotion Ratings

In a previous post, I defined the three elements of an experience: Success, Effort, and Emotion.

Emotion is a significant blind spot for most organizations. In the Temkin Group report State of CX Metrics, 2013, we found that only 11% of large companies feel that they do a very good job of measuring customers’ emotional responses. Our ROI of Customer Experience, 2014 shows that emotion is the most significant driver of loyalty, especially when it comes to consumers recommending firms to their friends.

We’ve been measuring emotion as part of our Temkin Experience Ratings for four years. Our emotion rating is based on asking consumers the following question:

Thinking of your most recent interactions with each of these companies, how did you feel about those interactions?

Responses range from 1 (upset) to 7 (delighted) and the emotion rating is calculated as the percentage of consumers who select 6 or 7 minus the percentage who select 1, 2, or 3.

As you can see in the list of leaders and laggards below (from ratings of 268 companies across 19 industries based on a survey of 10,000 U.S. consumers), H-E-B earned the highest overall emotion rating of 84%, outpacing second place Trader Joe’s by three points.

At the other end of the spectrum, Empire BCBS earned the l0west rating of 31% and several companies were just slightly better with 32%: Comcast (Internet and TV service), Charter Communications, and US Cellular.

The bottom line: Stop ignoring how your customers feel.

H-E-B Earns Highest Effort Rating, Medicaid Earns Lowest

In a previous post, I defined the three elements of an experience: Success, Effort, and Emotion. We’ve been measuring each of these areas as part of our Temkin Experience Ratings for four years. So I decided to share some insights from the effort ratings component of those overall ratings (you can see this data as part of the Temkin Experience Ratings datasets).

As you can see in the charts below (from ratings of 268 companies across 19 industries based on a survey of 10,000 U.S. consumers):

• H-E-B, Food Lion, Burger King, Chick-fil-A, Publix, credit unions, Sonic Drive-In, Trader Joe’s, Dairy Queen, Kroger, Little Caesar’s, Starbucks, Piggly Wiggly, and Regions have the highest effort ratings.
• Medicaid, Empire (BCBS), Coventry Health Care, Highmark (BCBS), Motel 6, Super 8, Residence Inn, Hitachi, Haier, Comcast, US Airways, and Chrysler have the lowest effort ratings.
• Grocery chains and fast food chains have the highest average effort ratings while health plans, TV service providers, Internet service providers, and hotels have the lowest.
• Led by a five point improvement in credit cards, 13 out of the 19 industries improved between 2013 and 2014.
• Hotels dropped eight points from 2013 to 2014, by far the largest of the three industries that declined. the others: parcel delivery services and retailers.

Best Western and La Quinta Inn Lead Hotel 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.

Best Western took the top spot for the first time this year, earning a 69% rating and placing 102^nd overall out of 268 companies across 19 industries. La Quinta Inn maintained its second-place position from last year with a rating of 67% and a rank of 119^th overall. At the other end of the spectrum, Motel 6 and Super 8 tied for the lowest-ranking hotel chain, both landing in 260^th place overall with a rating of 47% each.

Download entire dataset for $395

Here are some additional findings from the hotel 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.

Download report for $195

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

2012 Temkin Customer Service Ratings

Temkin Group has just released the 2012…The 2012 Customer Service Ratings covers 174 companies from 18 industries and is based on a survey of 10,000 U.S. consumers in January 2012.

Congratulations to the 2012 customer service leaders:

1) Publix
1) Hy-Vee
1) Credit unions
4) Chick-fil-A
5) H.E.B
5) Sam’s Club
7) Winn-Dixie
8) ShopRite
8) Aldi
8) Starbucks
8) Giant Eagle
8) JCPenney

At the other end of the spectrum, consumers gave the lowest ratings to Charter Communications, Time Warner Cable, Comcast, Citibank, Qwest, Road Runner, Cigna, and Bank of America.

The ratings covers the following industries: Airlines, appliance makers, auto dealers, banks, car rental agencies, computer makers, credit card issuers, fast food chains, grocery chains, health plans, hotel chains, insurance carriers, Internet service providers, investment firms, parcel delivery services, retailers, TV service providers, and wireless carriers.

Temkin Group examined industry averages and found that grocery chains were the only industry to earn a “strong” rating. Retailers, fast food chains, appliance makers, and investment firms round out the top five. But consumers gave very low ratings to TV service providers and Internet service providers.

The research also examines how individual companies are rated relative to their industry peers. Led by credit unions (banks), Kaiser Permanente (health plans), Bright House Networks (TV service), and American Express (credit cards), 15 companies outperformed their industry average Temkin Customer Service Ratings by 10 percentage points or more.

Sixteen firms fell below their industry average by 10 or more percentage points, with Charter Communications (TV service & Internet service), Citibank (banks), Hyundai (auto dealers), Bank of America (banks), and Super 8 (hotels) falling the farthest behind.

Temkin Group also analyzed changes from the 2011 Temkin Customer Service Ratings. Led by computer makers and health plans, 10 of the 12 industries that were in both the 2011 and 2012 ratings improved since last year.

Seventy-five percent of companies that were in the 2011 and 2012 Temkin Customer Service Ratings showed improvement. Fifteen organizations improved by at least 10 percentage points, with these five firms leading the way with improvements of at least 20 percentage points: PNC, Gateway, Toshiba, Farmers, and HSBC. Only two companies had double-digit declines: Edward Jones and Old Navy.

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 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

Hampton Inn and Marriott are Top Hotel Brands in CX Ratings

This post examines the 12 hotel brands included in the 2012 Temkin Experience Ratings.

Hampton Inn and Marriott were the top rated hotel brands and the only two to receive “good” ratings. The next seven hotel brands earned “okay” ratings while the bottom three hotel brands in the ratings—Days Inn, Motel 6, and Super 8—earned “poor” ratings.

The average ratings for the hotel industry placed it sixth out of 18 industries in the study. Temkin Group also analyzed the changes between 2011 and 2012 and found that the hotel industry is one of three industries with a decline in its customer experience ratings over the previous year.

Super 8 and Motel 6 earned the largest increase over last year’s ratings, while five other hotel brands also improved. Heading in the other direction, Hyatt and Days Inn earned the sharpest decrease between 2011 and 2012.

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: Hotels could add a bit more hospitality to their experience

Amazon.com, Costco, and USAA Are The Most Recommended Companies

In the 2011 Temkin Loyalty Ratings, we examined three elements of loyalty that includes the likelihood of consumers to recommend U.S. companies to their friends and relatives. I decided to take a closer look at the companies with the most, and the least, percentage of consumers that are likely to recommend them.

Here are some observations of the results across the 143 companies we examined:

• Amazon.com, Costco, and USAA are on top. No surprise; these companies do well in just about every measure of loyalty.
• Southwest Airlines and Vanguard stand out. Besides USAA, Southwest Airlines and Vanguard are the only companies that aren’t retailers or hotel chains on the top 20 list.
• Anthem, Blue Shield Of CA, and Charter Communications are on the bottom. Led by Anthem, Blue Shield Of California, and Charter Communications, 15 companies had less than 50% of consumers willing to recommend them.

We also looked at the level of consumer recommendations compared with industry averages. This analysis showed that:

• USAA and Regions outperform the most. Led by USAA (credit cards and insurers) and Regions (banks), seven firms have 10 percentage points more consumers willing to recommend them compared with their industry average. The others: Southwest (airlines), Amazon.com (retailers), TriCare (health plans), and USAA (banks).
• Gap and Radio Shack underperform the most. Led by Gap (retail) and Radio Shack (retailers), five companies fall at least 10 percentage points their industry average level of recommendations. The others: US Airways (airlines), Super 8 (hotels), and Anthem (health plans).

The bottom line: Recommendations are an asset that companies must cultivate.

Report: 2011 Temkin Loyalty Ratings

We just published a new Temkin Group report, 2011 Temkin Loyalty Ratings.

The report identifies the level of loyalty that US consumers have for 143 organizations across 12 industries.

Here’s the executive summary:

Amazon.com, Kohl’s, and Costco took the top spots in the 2011 Temkin Loyalty Ratings. We asked 6,000 US consumers to rate their level of loyalty to companies across three components: purchasing additional products and services, reluctance to switch business away, and likelihood to recommend the company to friends and relatives. This data allowed us to rate 143 companies across 12 industries. Only 17% of those companies received a “strong” or “very strong” loyalty rating. The results show that retailers have the highest level of loyalty while TV service providers and health plans have the lowest.

Download report for $195

First of all, let me give a shoutout to the five companies with the highest ratings, indicating that they have the most loyal customers:

• 1. Amazon.com
• 2. Kohl’s
• 3. Costco
• 4. (tie) Lowe’s
• 4. (tie) Sam’s Club

Here’s a list of the top 20 companies in the ratings. Click on the graphic below or click right here if you want to see the results for all 143 companies.

The Temkin Loyalty Ratings are calculated by examining three levels of loyalty that companies have earned from consumers: willingness to buy more products, reluctance to switch business away from, and likelihood to recommend those companies.

Overall, consumers don’t have a strong degree of loyalty across many industries. Retailers, by far, earn the highest levels of loyalty. TV Service providers and Internet Service providers, on the other hand, have earned woefully little loyalty with consumers.

Here are some of the other findings from the research:

• Results versus industry averages. Led by USAA (insurance and credit cards), TriCare (health plans), credit unions (banks), and Southwest Airlines, 12 companies had double-digit advantages in loyalty over their industry. At the other end of the spectrum, Radio Shack (retailers), Super 8 (hotel chains), and Gap (retailers) led 18 companies with loyalty scores at least 10 points below their industry averages.
• “Recommending” leaders and laggards. Led by Costco and Amazon.com, 36 companies have “very strong” ratings for consumers that are likely to recommend them to friends and colleagues. At the other end of the spectrum, Charter Communications, Anthem, and Comcast are the only firms with a “very weak” rating in this area.
• “Switching” leaders and laggards. While no companies have very strong ratings for customers that are reluctant to switch, TriCare and USAA lead the five companies that have a “strong” rating in this area. Blue Shield Of California and Lenovo are at the low-end of the spectrum along with 12 other companies that have negative ratings in this area.
• “Repurchasing” leaders and laggards. When it comes to having customers who are likely to purchase something else from them, Amazon.com and Old Navy lead 21 companies with “very strong” loyalty ratings in this area. HSBC and Charter Communications are two of the seven companies that didn’t even cross the 20% mark in this area.

Download report for $195

For access to more data, you can visit Temkin Ratings Website.

Now that we’ve published the Temkin Loyalty Ratings and the Temkin Experience Ratings, we’re analyzing the correlation between the two datasets. Look for out upcoming report: Customer Experience And Loyalty: Connecting The Dots

The bottom line: Loyalty is up for grabs!

20 Companies Most Susceptible To Negative Comments Via 3rd Party Ratings Sites

In my previous two posts, I listed companies that were susceptible to negative feedback via Facebook and Twitter. Now it’s time to look at 3rd party ratings sites like TripAdviosr and Yelp.. In the report How Consumers Give Feedback, we analyzed what US consumers did after they had a very bad or a very good experience.

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

This chart shows the 20 companies that interact with consumers who are most likely to post a comment or rating about a very bad experience on a 3rd party site.

As you can see, Days Inn, Super 8, TD Ameritrade, United Airlines, Hyatt, Hilton, and AirTram Airways are more than the most susceptible to having a bad comment or rating show up on these sites.

The bottom line: These firms need to track third party rating sites more than their peers

20 Companies Most Susceptible To Negative Comments Via Facebook

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

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

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

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

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