Sam's Club, Aldi, and USAA have earned top ratings for customer loyalty while Citigroup and Charter Communications both showed up twice in the bottom four spots, according to the 2012 Temkin Loyalty Ratings, which also found that women are far more brand-loyal than men.
The loyalty study asked 10,000 US consumers to rate their brand loyalty in terms of likelihood to recommend, reluctance to switch, and willingness to repurchase, and found that more than one quarter of companies have either "strong" or "very strong" loyalty ratings, while 50% have "weak" or "very weak" ratings.
At the industry level, grocery chains and retailers have the most loyal customers while internet service providers and TV service providers have the least loyal customers. USAA has the most loyal customers across three industries (banking, insurance, and credit cards). And, comparing the results from the 2011 and 2012 studies, PNC and USAA had improved the most while Kohl's and Hyatt had declined the most.
Loyalty by gender
The study also examined the difference in loyalty scores between male and female consumers. Interestingly, women were found to be more loyal than men in all 18 industries. As observed in the table of results below, there are four industries where women have a wide loyalty gap with men: rental car agencies, airlines, hotel chains, and grocery chains. In only three industries do women have less than a three percentage point loyalty gap: TV service providers, internet service providers, and credit card issuers.
| Industry | Female | Male |
| Rental car agencies | 41% | 27% |
| Airlines | 44% | 32% |
| Hotel chains | 46% | 36% |
| Grocery chains | 59% | 49% |
| Parcel delivery services | 56% | 47% |
| Retailers | 57% | 48% |
| Fast food chains | 54% | 46% |
| Investment firms | 47% | 39% |
| Appliance makers | 42% | 34% |
| Computer makers | 45% | 38% |
| Insurance carriers | 37% | 33% |
| Auto dealers | 36% | 32% |
| Wireless carriers | 37% | 33% |
| Health plans | 36% | 32% |
| Banks | 37% | 34% |
| Credit card issuers | 31% | 29% |
| Internet service providers | 29% | 27% |
| TV service providers | 28% | 26% |
Table: 2012 Temkin Loyalty Ratings by Gender
Source: Temkin Group Q1 2012 Consumer Benchmark Surveys
Copyright (c) 2012 Temkin Group. All rights reserved.
Top performers
In terms of loyalty ratings, the top performers in the study were:
1. Sam's Club (retailer);
2. Aldi (Grocery chain);
3. USAA (Bank);
4. Publix (Grocery chain);
5. Amazon.com (Retailer);
6. A credit union (Bank);
7. H.E.B. (Grocery chain).
... and tied for eighth place:
8. Chick-fil-A (Fast food chain);
8. Starbucks (Fast food chain);
8. Target (Retailer);
8. USAA (Insurance carrier).
Other highlights from the research included that:
- USAA (in its banking and credit card divisions) as well as credit unions (banking) outpaced their industry peers by more than 25 percentage points.
- DHL and RadioShack were the furthest behind their peers, falling more than 20 percentage points below their industry averages.
- Across the 12 industries we examined in both years, nine industries earned higher overall loyalty scores in 2012 and three showed an overall decline. Computer makers were at the top of the list of gainers while retailers showed the largest decline.
- Out of the 139 companies that were included in both the 2011 and 2012 Temkin Loyalty Ratings, 84 made at least a small improvement in their scores. Led by PNC and USAA, 19 companies earned double-digit percentage improvements year on year.
- Kohl's and Hyatt were the only companies that declined by more than 10 percentage points from 2011 to 2012.
Obtaining the full report...
The full report has been made available for online purchase (US$195) directly from Temkin Group's web site - click here. Access to the data sets behind the Temkin Ratings can also be purchased online, here.
Temkin Group's managing partner, Bruce Temkin, is an established customer experience expert, helping large organisations improve their business results by changing how they deal with customers. As part of this focus, Temkin addresses the full array of strategy, marketing, interaction design, customer service, and leadership practices. Temkin also publishes the online journal 'Customer Experience Matters', here.
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