Sam’s Club tops Amazon in service rankings
A study of 10,000 U.S. consumers’ attitudes about retail customer service saw Sam’s Club best Amazon.com and dozens of other retailers among a field of 268 companies.
The customer service rankings are detailed in the 2014 Temkin Experience Ratings study now in its fourth year. Sam's Club and Amazon.com continued 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 8th 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, according to the study.
"Sam's Club and Amazon.com continue to set the standard in retail customer experience," said Bruce Temkin, managing partner of Temkin Group.
Other top ranked retailers included Lowe’s and Dollar Tree at 78% and Barnes & Noble and Home Depot at 77%.
In addition to RadioShack (60%) and Foot Locker (62%), other laggards in Temkins survey included Wal-Mart (69%), Macy's (68%), Toys 'R' Us (68%), Sears (67%), Kmart (67%), Apple Store (67%), GameStop (66%) and Gap (64%).
The retail industry overall averaged a 73% rating which put it in a tie for third place of the 19 industries examined.
Other industries studied included 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, software firms, TV service providers, and wireless carriers.
To generate the ratings, Temkin Group asked consumers to evaluate their experiences with a company across three dimensions: functional (can you do what you want to do?), accessible (how easy is it to work with the company?), and emotional (how do you feel about the interactions?). Temkin Group then averaged these three scores to produce a company's Temkin Experience Rating.
In these ratings, a score of 70% or above is considered "good," and a score of 80% or above is considered "excellent."