Sam's Club and Amazon Earn Top Honors in Retail Industry for Customer Experience, According to New Temkin Group Research

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SOURCE Temkin Group

Third Annual Temkin Experience Ratings Evaluates 246 Companies Across 19 Industries

WABAN, Mass., March 19, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Based on a study of 10,000 U.S consumers, Sam's Club and Amazon earned the top spots in the retail sector of the 2013 Temkin Experience Ratings. At the other end of the spectrum, RadioShack was the lowest-rated retailer for the third consecutive year. The retail industry was tied for third out of 19 industries we studied. Thirty-six out of the 44 retailers in the study earned a "good" or "excellent" rating.

"The retail industry remains one of the better sectors for customer experience, but RadioShack is a real black sheep in the industry," states Bruce Temkin, managing partner of Temkin Group.

The Temkin Experience Ratings evaluates three areas of customer experience: functional (can customers do what they want to do), accessible (how easy it is to work with the company), and emotional (how consumers feel about their interactions).

Here are some additional findings:

• Amazon and Sam's Club (tied for #5 across all industries) earned ratings of 81% while Ace Hardware earned 80%, all of which fall into the "excellent" range.
• Six additional retailers were in the top 20 overall: Costco (tied for #13), Nordstrom (tied for #13), PetSmart (tied for #20), BJs Wholesale (tied for #20), Dollar Tree (tied for #20), and Walgreens (tied for #20).
• Radio Shack is the lowest-rated retailer for the third consecutive year, earning a "poor" rating of 58%. It also earned the lowest score across all three underlying components, functional, accessible, and emotional.
• The next seven retailers at the bottom of the industry earned "okay" ratings: Apple Stores, Best Buy, T.J. Maxx, Ross, Gap, JCPenney, and Wal-Mart.
• Amazon and Costco are the top rated in the functional component, Ace Hardware is the top rated in the accessible component, and Nordstrom is the top in the emotional component.
• Office Depot (increase of 11 percentage points) and Barnes & Noble (increase of eight percentage points) made the largest improvements in the industry from 2012.
• JCPenney (decrease of six percentage points), Sam's Club (decrease of four percentage points), and Lowe's (decrease of four percentage points) had the largest declines from 2012.
• The average rating for the retail industry increased from 71% in 2012 to 74% in 2013.

The 2013 Temkin Experience Ratings along with other ratings can be accessed at the Temkin Ratings website, www.TemkinRatings.com.

The report "2013 Temkin Experience Ratings" can be downloaded for free from the Customer Experience Matters^® blog, at ExperienceMatters.wordpress.com as well as from the Temkin Group website, www.TemkinGroup.com.

About Temkin Group: Temkin Group is widely recognized as a leading customer experience research and consulting firm. Many of the world's largest brands rely on its insights and advice to steer their transformational journeys. Temkin Group combines customer experience thought leadership with a deep understanding of the dynamics of organizations to help accelerate results. Rather than layering on cosmetic changes, Temkin Group helps companies embed practices within their culture by building four critical competencies: Purposeful Leadership, Employee Engagement, Compelling Brand Values, and Customer Connectedness. The firm's ongoing research identifies leading and emerging best practices across a wide range of activities for engaging the hearts and minds of customers, employees, and partners. For more information, contact Bruce Temkin at 617-916-2075 or send an email.

About Bruce Temkin: Bruce Temkin is widely recognized as a customer experience thought leader and is Customer Experience Transformist and Managing Partner of Temkin Group. He is also the author of a very popular blog, Customer Experience Matters® (ExperienceMatters.wordpress.com). Prior to forming Temkin Group, he was a VP at Forrester Research for 12 years. Bruce is a highly demanded speaker who consistently receives high marks for his content-rich, entertaining keynote addresses. He is also the co-founder and Chair of the Customer Experience Professionals Association (CXPA.org), a global non-profit organization dedicated to the advancement of customer experience management.

Customer experience matters is a registered trademark of Temkin Group.

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