Study: Grocers Publix, Trader Joe's top experience rankings; Office Depot among most improved

Waban, Mass. -- Survey results released Wednesday by Temkin Group revealed that Publix and Trader Joe’s ranked the highest among 246 companies in terms of customer experience.



The 2013 Temkin Experience Ratings, which polled 10,000 U.S. consumers, were dominated by grocery chains and food purveyors. After Public and Trader Joe’s was Aldi, and rounding out the top 12 were Chick-fil-A, Amazon.com, Sam's Club, H.E.B., Dunkin' Donuts, Save-a-Lot, Sonic Drive-In, Little Caeser's and Ace Hardware.



The five lowest scoring organizations were US Airways, Time Warner Cable, Days Inn, Empire BCBS, and 21st Century. The companies that made the largest improvement over 2012 were Citibank, TriCare, TD Ameritrade, Office Depot, EarthLink, Hardees and Regions Bank.



Temkin said 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.



"It's wonderful to see that customer experience is improving, although many companies still have a long way to go," states Bruce Temkin, managing partner of Temkin Group.



The survey examines customer experience across 19 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, software firms, TV service providers, and wireless carriers. It evaluates three areas of customer experience: functional, accessible and emotional.



Among other key findings:

• RadioShack and Apple Store underperformed the retail industry averages;

• Leaders in functional experience were Publix, Trader Joe's and Costco;

• The leader in accessible experience was Ace Hardware; and

• The leader in emotional experience was Publix.