Study: Costco, Amazon tops in customer loyalty

Costco, Amazon.com and Apple rank highest in customer loyalty, according to this year’s Net Promoter Consumer Study.

The study ranks more than 220 brands, such as Costco, Amazon.com, Apple and more across 22 U.S. industry sectors, including financial services, insurance, technology, online entertainment, retail stores, electronics, travel and hospitality, and telecommunications.

"Our 2015 reports provide not only industry rankings according to companies' Net Promoter Scores, but also direct insight into which customer experiences drive loyalty and are most critical to a company's success," said Brendan Rocks, head of data science at Satmetrix. "The Net Promoter leaders in their respective industries have positioned themselves to outpace the competition in the areas of increased customer retention and acquisition -- and ultimately in terms of bottom line growth."

The Satmetrix Net Promoter Benchmarks are based on survey responses from more than 30,000 U.S. consumers nationwide who rated their experience with the primary brands they use. The Net Promoter Score, or NPS, for each brand is based on customers' likelihood to recommend the company's product or service in the sector being rated.

NPS is calculated as the percentage of customers who are promoters, rating the company 9 or 10 on a 0-10 point scale, minus the percentage who are detractors, rating 6 or lower. Consumers also rated each brand on various aspects of customer experience, including product or service features, customer service and overall value, enabling Satmetrix to identify the key drivers of loyalty and recommendation. The 10th annual Benchmark reports provide a detailed look at loyalty drivers tailored to each specific sector, providing a rich view for companies to examine key performance measures against their peers.

Leaders in eight of the 22 industry sectors have changed since last year's report. Trader Joe's, which had led the Grocery/Supermarkets sector for four consecutive years until Wegman's rise to the top last year, returned as the category leader. Costco had the best overall NPS score at 79.

Twenty-two reports, covering each of the sectors featured, are ready for download with analysis of time trends and the drivers that affect customer loyalty (raw data is also available) at: www.satmetrix.com/benchmarking.