Temkin Group Research Archives - Customer Experience Matters®

Report: The Customer Journeys That Matter The Most

June 13, 2018June 13, 2018

Few organizations deliver outstanding experiences to their customers. In fact, only 6% of companies earned an “excellent” score in the 2018 Temkin Experience Ratings. To better understand which types of interactions are most likely to affect the customer’s perception of an organization, we asked customers to identify the most problematic journeys across 19 different industries. In this report, we:

Examine feedback from 10,000 U.S. consumers about their journeys with 318 companies across 19 industries.
Identify which customer journeys consumers think most need improvement and look at how those responses differ across age groups.
Evaluate how different customer journeys impact five loyalty behaviors: likelihood to recommend the company, likelihood to repurchase from the company, likelihood to forgive the company if it makes a mistake, likelihood to trust the company, and likelihood of trying new offerings from the company.
One of the key findings across industries is that journeys that touch customer service are often the most prevalent and the most impactful on customer loyalty.

Download report for $195

Here’s the first figure in the report, which has a total of 58 figures (three detailed graphics for each of the industries):

Download report for $195

Report: What Happens After a Good or Bad Experience, 2018

June 4, 2018June 1, 2018

To understand how the quality of a customer’s experience – whether it was good or bad – affects their behavior, we asked 10,000 U.S. consumers about their recent interactions with more than 300 companies across 20 industries. We then compared results with similar studies we’ve conducted over the previous seven years.

Download report for $195

Here are some highlights:

About 18% of the customers who interacted with TV & Internet service providers reported having a bad experience – a considerably higher percentage than in other industries. Of the companies we evaluated, 21^st Century, Comcast, Cox Communications, and New York Life deliver bad experiences most frequently.
We created a Sales at Risk Index for all 20 industries by combining the percentage of customers in an industry who reported having a bad experience with the percentage who said they decreased their spending after a bad experience. According to this Index, TV & Internet service providers stand to lose the most revenue (6.4%) from delivering bad experiences, while utilities stand to lose the least (1.4%).
When it comes to recovering from delivering a bad experience, Investment firms are the most effective and TV & Internet service providers are the least effective.
After customers have a very bad or very good experience with a company, they are more likely to give feedback directly to the company than they are to post about it on Facebook, Twitter, or third party rating sites. Customers are also more likely to share positive feedback through online surveys and share negative feedback through emails.
Compared to previous years, customers are less likely to share feedback across almost all channels, with a particularly large drop in the percentage who post on Facebook or Twitter.
Across almost all age groups, consumers are most likely to share their feedback directly with the company. Consumers between 18 and 34 years old are the most likely to share their good and bad experiences on Facebook, while older consumers tend to use 3rd party ratings sites more than Facebook or Twitter.

Download report for $195

Here is one of the 12 graphics in the report:

Making AI Customer-Centric

May 22, 2018May 22, 2018

Temkin Group just published a new report, Making AI Customer-Centric. Here’s the executive summary:

The use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) – often in the form of chatbots and intelligent virtual assistants – is becoming more widespread in customer experience. However, despite its prevalence, few companies are employing AI in the right scenarios or using it to its fullest potential. In this report, Temkin Group creates a model and shares best practices for AI-Driven Interfaces (AIDI), which we define as digital interactions with customers that are being directly manipulated by machine learning algorithms.

Download report for $195

To successfully deploy customer-centric AI, companies need to:

Integrate the elements of the Human Conversational Model into the design of AIDI.
Bring together Five Ingredients: Conversational Design, Targeted Use Cases, Optimized Data Aggregation, Responsive AI Engine, and Continuous Tuning.
Determine Organizational AI Readiness before deployment by tying AI to business strategy, auditing data sources, assessing employee skills, and planning for agent/AIDI interactions.

Five Ingredients of Customer-Centric AI

Download report for $195

2018 Temkin Trust Ratings (U.S.): USAA and Wegmans On Top

May 15, 2018May 14, 2018

Temkin Group announces the release of the 2018 Temkin Trust Ratings (TTR). Based on a study of 10,000 U.S consumers, the ratings benchmarks the level of trust that consumers have with 318 companies across 20 industries. USAA’s (TTR of 81%) banking business earned the top spot, followed by Wegmans (79%), credit unions (77%), H-E-B (77%), and USAA’s credit card and insurance businesses (75%). Four TV/Internet service providers earned the lowest TTR: Comcast (22%), Charter Spectrum (25%), Optimum (29%), and Cox Communications (29%). Here’s a full list of all of the companies in the TTR.

You can see all of the high-level results on the Temkin Ratings website, or purchase a full dataset.

Purchase dataset for $295+
(see sample spreadsheet)

***See how your company can reference these results
or display a badge for top 10% and industry leaders***

Highlights of the 2018 Temkin Trust Ratings include:

The supermarket industry earned the highest average TTR (66%), followed by investment firms (62%), insurance companies (61%), and auto dealers (61%).
TV/Internet service providers earned the lowest average TTR (32%), well below the next lowest industry, health plans (49%).
When compared with their industry averages, eight companies earned TTRs that were at least 15 points above their peers: USAA (banks and credit cards), Alabama Power Company, credit unions, TriCare, Advantage Rent-A-Car, Regions Bank, and Navy Federal Credit Union.
Seven companies earned TTRs that were 15 or more points below their industry averages: Days Inn, Sears, San Diego Gas & Electric, CarMax, Wells Fargo, Motel 6, and Spirit Airlines.
The TTRs for all 20 industries declined between 2017 and 2018. The largest decline was in utilities (-6.2 %-points) and the smallest decline was in health plans (-0.9).
Between 2017 and 2018, Showtime improved the most (+13 %-points). Six other companies improved by seven or more points: Taco Bell, Whirlpool, Pizza Hut, Foot Locker, Family Dollar, and O’Reilly Auto Parts.
Between 2017 and 2018, Appalachian Power Company declined the most (-26 %-points). Eight other companies declined by 15 or more points: Spirit Airlines, Michael’s, Jeep, CarMax, Fox Rent A Car, Haier, PSE&G, and HSBC.

Purchase dataset for $295+
(see sample spreadsheet)

Report: Fan Experience Benchmark: U.S. Professional Sports

May 2, 2018May 2, 2018

We just published a Temkin Group report, Fan Experience Benchmark: U.S. Professional Sports: U.S. Consumers’ TV Preferences And In-Person Experiences For MLB, MLS, NASCAR, NBA, NFL, NHL, PGA, USTA, and WNBA.

For seven years in a row, Temkin Group has tracked U.S. consumers’ preferences for watching professional sports on TV. This year, we also examined their experience when attending a live sporting event. Here are some highlights from this research:

NFL is the most dominate sport on TV, but MLB has the highest percentage of fans who attend its games.
Almost all sports lost TV viewers over the last seven years, with NFL dropping the most. Viewership has declined most dramatically for young adult males.
NASCAR has the highest level of promoters for its live sporting events, while the NFL has the lowest.
We evaluated consumer satisfaction across the nine steps that make up a live sporting event journey. Of these steps, parking received the lowest average satisfaction, and ticketing correlated most strongly with fans’ likelihood of recommending attending an event to their friends and relatives.
We include live event scorecards for MLB, MLS, NASCAR, NBA, NFL, NHL, and WNBA
Sports teams that want to improve fan experience need to build four competencies: Purposeful Leadership, Compelling Brand Values, Employee Engagement, and Customer Connectedness.

Download report for $195

2018 Temkin Forgiveness Ratings: USAA and ACE Rent A Car On Top

April 24, 2018April 24, 2018

Every organization makes some mistakes, so an important area of loyalty is the willingness of customers to forgive them. That’s why Temkin Group has been measuring forgiveness for eight years.

This product is the dataset, in excel, for the 2018 Temkin Forgiveness Ratings (TFR).It uses feedback from 10,000 U.S. consumers to rate how likely consumers are to forgive 318 organizations across 20 industries after they make a mistake. It includes the TFR for 318 companies and 20 industries, the changes in TFR between 2017 and 2018, and the difference in TFR across age groups for each industry.

For more information, including a sortable table with all of the high level results, visit the Temkin Ratings website.

Download dataset for $295 (see sample file)

Additional highlights of the 2018 Temkin Forgiveness Ratings:

Between 2017 and 2018, 14 of the 20 industries experienced declines in their average TFR. Wireless and supermarkets (+2.1 %-points) improved the most (+2.3 %-points), while utilities (-5.) and hotels & rooms dropped the most (-4.2 %-points).
Of the 308 companies that were in both the 2017 and 2018 TFR, 272 companies experienced a drop in their scores. The five companies to improve the most are Starz, MetroPCS, Fifth Third, Domino’s, and Dairy Queen. The five companies to decline the most are Bosch, Appalachian Power Company, HSBC, AmazonFresh, and Motel 6.

Download dataset for $295 (see sample file)

***See how your company can reference these results
or display a badge for top 10% and industry leaders***

View a sortable list of results from the Temkin Forgiveness Ratings as well as other ratings on the Temkin Ratings website.

2018 Temkin Experience Ratings: 20 Industry Snapshots

April 23, 2018April 22, 2018

We released the 2018 Temkin Experience Ratings that ranks the customer experience of 318 companies across 20 industries based on a survey of 10,000 U.S. consumers. Here’s a link to FAQ’s about the Ratings.

As a follow-up, we published blog posts that examine the results for each of the 20 industries. You can see links to all of those industry snapshots below:

> Airlines
> Auto Dealers
> Banks
> Computers & Tablets
> Credit Card Issuers
> Fast Food Chains
> Health Plans
> Hotels & Rooms
> Insurance Carriers
> Investment Firms
> Parcel Delivery Services
> Rental Cars & Transport
> Retailers
> Software Firms
> Streaming Media
> Supermarkets
> TV Service & ISPs
> TVs & Appliances
> Utilities
> Wireless Carriers

Report: Propelling Experience Design Across An Organization

April 18, 2018April 28, 2018

We just published a Temkin Group report, Propelling Experience Design Across An Organization.

Although customer experience (CX) management has become a relatively common activity within large organizations, companies still struggle to deliver consistently positive experiences to their customers. One major issue impeding companies’ current CX efforts is that few organizations design customer interactions in a purposeful and deliberate manner. This report explores how companies can use Experience Design – which we define as a repeatable, human-centric approach for creating emotionally resonant interactions – to craft consistently excellent interactions and how they can share and spread these capabilities across the entire organization.

Download report for $195

Here are some highlights from this report:

The Experience Design process is made up of three generic phases (Clarification, Generation, Realization), each of which contains two stages (empathize and synthesize, conceptualize and materialize, scrutinize and actualize).
To help propel Experience Design capabilities across the organization, we developed The Federated Experience Design Model, which is made up of three tiers of employees – Experts, Boosters, and Dabblers.
We share over 30 examples of best practices from companies that are spreading and sharing Experience Design capabilities throughout their entire organization.
We also provide some tools that employees can use across the six stages of the Experience Design process.

Here are two of the 22 figures in the report:

Download report for $195

The move towards propelling CX across an organization is part of a broader trend that we describe in the report, The Federated Customer Experience Model.

Report: The State of CX Management, 2018

April 10, 2018April 10, 2018

We just published a Temkin Group report, The State of CX Management, 2018.

Temkin Group has evaluated the state of Customer Experience (CX) management at large companies for nine years in a row. This year, the benchmark is based on a survey of 171 companies with at least $500 million in annual revenues. Respondents not only answered questions about CX management, they also completed our CX Competency and Maturity Assessment. When we analyzed organizations’ CX efforts and progress towards maturity, we found that:

While only 7% of companies view themselves as industry leaders in CX today, 54% aspire to be leaders within three years.
Only 13% of companies have reached the top two (out of six) levels of CX maturity.
Of the four CX Core Competencies, Compelling Brand Values continues to be the most problematic for companies.
Twenty-two percent of firms have at least 21 FTEs in their centralized CX groups.
Companies rate themselves highest for customer insights & analysis and weakest for ambassador programs.
Voice of the customer software and market research vendors are the most valuable CX tools and services.
Two-thirds of companies think that their phone agents typical deliver a good experience, while only 11% feel that way about chat bots.
The top obstacle that companies face is other competing priorities, which has been at the top of the list for several years.
When we compared CX leaders with CX laggards, we discovered that the leaders enjoy stronger financial results, are more likely to have senior executives leading company-wide CX efforts, employ more full-time CX employees, use more experience design agencies, and feel more supported by senior leaders.
CX leaders are more likely to describe their culture as being Customer- or Mission-Centric, while CX laggards are more likely to describe theirs as Sales- or Profit-Centric.

This report also includes an assessment that companies can use to benchmark their CX efforts and capabilities.

Download report for $195

Here are the results from Temkin Group’s CX Competency & Maturity Assessment:

Download report for $195

Want to gauge your organization’s customer experience maturity or how well it’s doing across the Four CX Core Competencies? You can access Temkin Group’s online CX Competency & Maturity Assessment… and it’s FREE.

Report: State of the CX Profession, 2018

March 27, 2018March 28, 2018

We just published a Temkin Group report, State of the CX Profession, 2018. This is the fifth year that we’ve examined the roles of CX professionals and the third year that we’ve done a compensation study. Here’s the executive summary:

To understand the mindset and roles of customer experience professionals today, we surveyed 221 CX professionals and then compared their responses to similar studies we’ve conducted over the previous six years. We asked respondents about how their CX efforts impacted their organization last year and what their company plans to do during the coming year. This report also includes a compensation study, which is based on the 158 respondents who agreed to participate. Here are some highlights from the research:

Eighty-seven percent of respondents say that their customer experience efforts have had a positive business impact in 2017.
Ninety-six percent think that customer experience is a great profession to be in.
Eighty percent think that customer experience will be more important for their companies in 2018 than it was in 2017, compared to the 5% who think it will be less important.
Forty-eight percent expect to see an increase in their customer experience staffing levels this year, compared with only 6% that expect a decline.
Respondents plan to increase their spending most on voice of the customer software.
Respondents plan to increase their focus most on Web experiences and customer insights and analysis.
The total amount of compensation in our study ranges from $104,000 for mid-level individual contributors to $296,000 for CX executives.

Download report for $195

Here’s some data showing some of the results from the compensation study:

Compensation ranges for customer experience (CX) professionals

Download report for $195

Report: 2018 Temkin Experience Ratings (U.S.)

March 20, 2018April 23, 2018

2018 marks the eighth straight year that we’ve published the Temkin Experience Ratings, a cross-industry, open standard benchmark of customer experience.

To generate these Ratings, we asked 10,000 U.S. consumers to rate their recent interactions with 318 companies across 20 industries and then evaluated their experiences across three dimensions: success, effort, and emotion. Here are some highlights:

Wegmans, H-E-B, Citizens, credit unions, Publix, and Subway earned the highest overall ratings, while CarMax, Spirit Airlines, Optimum, Medicaid, and Comcast received the lowest.
When we compared individual company’s ratings with their industry averages, we found that Southwest Airlines and Georgia Power most outperformed their peers, while CarMax and Spirit Airlines fell farthest behind their competitors.
The Ratings declined slightly this year, driven mostly by a drop in the emotion component scores.
To improve customer experience, companies need to master four competencies: Purposeful Leadership, Compelling Brand Values, Employee Engagement, and Customer Connectedness.

Download report for Free You can also download the dataset in Excel for $395

We have also published industry snapshots for all 20 industries.

Have questions? See our FAQs about the Temkin Experience Ratings and watch this previously recorded webinar.

Here are the top and bottom companies in the ratings:

2018 Temkin Experience Ratings: Customer Experience (CX) Leaders & Laggards

***See how your company can reference these results or
display a badge for top 10% and industry leaders***

Here’s how the industries compare with each other:

2018 Temkin Experience Ratings: Customer Experience (CX) Benchmark Data for 20 Industries

Download report for FREE
You can also download the dataset in Excel for $395

Get the Data

Do you want to see all of the data from the 2018 Temkin Experience Ratings? You can purchase an excel spreadsheet for $395. Here’s a sample of the spreadsheet (.xls).

To view all of our ratings (experience, trust, forgiveness, customer service, and web experience), visit the Temkin Ratings website…

Report: Tech Vendors: Product and Relationship Satisfaction, 2018

February 12, 2018February 12, 2018

We just published a Temkin Group data snapshot, Tech Vendors: Product and Relationship Satisfaction of IT Clients, 2018.

During Q3 of 2017, we surveyed 800 IT decision-makers from companies with at least $250 million in annual revenues, asking them to rate both the products of and their relationships with 58 different tech vendors. Google, Oracle outsourcing, and Microsoft servers earned the top overall scores, while Autodesk, ADP outsourcing, and Fujitsu received the lowest overall scores. To determine their product rating, we evaluated tech vendors across four product/service criteria: features, quality, flexibility, and ease of use. And we calculated their relationship rating using four different criteria: technical support, support of the account team, cost of ownership, and innovation of company. We also looked at how the average product and relationship scores of tech vendors have changed over the previous four years and found that both product/service and relationship satisfaction have dropped to their lowest levels since the study began.

This research has a report (.pdf) and a dataset (excel). The dataset has the details of Product/Service and Relationship satisfaction for the 58 tech vendors as well as for 31 other tech vendors with sample sizes too small to be included in the published report. Here is a sample of the dataset.

Download report for $495
(includes Excel spreadsheet with data)

Here’s a link to last year’s study.

Here are the overall results:

Here are the data graphics in the report:

Questions Used to Drive Analysis
Overall Product & Relationship Satisfaction Ratings
Product & Relationship Satisfaction Component Scores
Top Half in Product Satisfaction Ratings
Bottom Half in Product Satisfaction Ratings
Top Half in Relationship Satisfaction Ratings
Bottom Half in Relationship Satisfaction Ratings
Product & Relationship Satisfaction Component Scores, 2014 to 2017

Report details: When you purchase this research, you will receive a written data snapshot and an excel spreadsheet with more data. The dataset has the details of Product/Service and Relationship satisfaction for the 58 tech vendors as well as for 31 tech vendors with sample sizes too small to be included in the published report. If you want to know more about the data file, download this SAMPLE SPREADSHEET without the data (.xls).

Download report for $495
(includes Excel spreadsheet with data)

Report: Customer Experience Expectations and Plans for 2018

January 30, 2018January 30, 2018

We just published a Temkin Group data snapshot, Customer Experience Expectations and Plans for 2018.

In December 2017, Temkin Group surveyed 145 respondents – each from a company with $500 million or more in annual revenues – about their customer experience efforts over the past year and their plans for 2018 and beyond. We compared the results of this survey to the results of similar surveys we’ve conducted over the previous seven years. This year’s results show that companies plan on increasing the amount of money and effort they dedicate to improving a variety of customer experience activities.

Here are previous reports from 2017, 2016, and 2015.

Download report for $195

Here are some highlights from the research:

86% of companies have seen a positive impact from their CX efforts in 2017.
81% of companies expect CX to be more important in 2018 than it was in 2017.
62% of companies expect to spend more on CX in 2018 than they did in 2017.
The companies that expect to increase their CX staffing in more than five times the percentage that expect to decrease it.
Companies plan to increase their spending the most for VoC software and chat bot vendors.
Companies plan to increase their focus the most on online self-service experiences, and the least on phone self-service.
Companies plan to increase their focus the most on solving customer service issues, and the least on understanding bills and statement.
Companies plan to increase their effort the most on customer insights and analytics.
21% of companies plan to compensate front-line employees based on CX metrics.
Compared with other companies, companies with more successful CX efforts in 2017 are employing more CX professionals, focusing more on online chat and new product experiences, and plan to spend more on speech/voice analytics vendors.

Here are the data charts in this data snapshot:

Business Impact of CX
Changes in the Importance of Customer Experience
Changes in Spending on Customer Experience
Changes in CX Staffing Levels
Plans for Spending with CX Vendors
Focus on CX Across Interaction Channels in 2018
Plans to Increase Focus on the CX of Different Channels
Focus on Customer Journeys in 2018
Focus on CX Activities in 2018
Plans to Increase Focus on Different CX Activities
Compensation Based on CX Metrics
Key Differences Between Companies With More Successful And Less Successful CX Programs

Download report for $195

Report: Channel Preferences Benchmark, 2018

January 23, 2018February 3, 2018

We just published a Temkin Group data snapshot, Channel Preferences Benchmark, 2018.

Here’s the executive summary:

In Q3 2017, we surveyed 10,000 U.S. consumers about their channel preferences when performing 12 different activities – such as selecting a life insurance policy or applying for a new credit card – and compared their responses to the results of a similar study we conducted in Q3 2016. This data snapshot examines how channel preferences vary across age groups, how these preferences have changed over the past year, and how channel preferences differ across multiple activities.

Here are previous benchmarks from 2016, 2015, and 2014.

Download report for $195

Here is an excerpt from one of the 14 charts in the report:

Here are all of the data charts int he report:

Channel Preferences Across Multiple Activities
Channel Preferences: Changes between 2016 and 2017
Channel Preference By Age: Check the Delivery Status of a Purchase You Made
Channel Preference By Age: Check the Balance on a Savings or Checking Account
Channel Preference By Age: Update Your Address on an Account After You Move
Channel Preference By Age: Purchase a New Book
Channel Preference By Age: Apply for a New Credit Card
Channel Preference By Age: Change the Beneficiary on a Life Insurance Account
Channel Preference By Age: Resolve a Technical Problem with Your Computer
Channel Preference By Age: Purchase a New Auto Insurance Policy
Channel Preference By Age: Select a Life Insurance Policy
Channel Preference By Age: Investigate a Mistake in Your Monthly Cell Phone Bill
Channel Preference By Age: Open a New Investment Account
Channel Preference By Age: Schedule a Medical Procedure

Download report for $195

Report: Lessons in CX Excellence, 2018

January 8, 2018January 17, 2018

We just published a Temkin Group report, Lessons in CX Excellence, 2018. The report provides insights from six winners in the Temkin Group’s 2017 CX Excellence Awards. The report, which has more than 70 pages of content, includes an appendix with the finalists’ nomination forms. This report has rich insights about both B2B and B2C customer experience.

Here’s the executive summary:

This past November, we named six organizations the winners of Temkin Group’s 2017 Customer Experience Excellence Award – AARP, Allianz Worldwide Partners, Century Support Services, Nurse Next Door Home Care Services, Reliant, and Sage. This report:

Highlights specific examples of how these companies’ customer experience (CX) efforts have created value for both their customers and for their businesses.
Describes winners’ best practices across the four customer experience competencies: purposeful leadership, compelling brand values, employee engagement, and customer connectedness.
Includes all of the winners’ detailed nomination forms to help you collect examples and ideas to apply to your own CX efforts.

Download report for $195

Here are some highlights from the winners: Read More …