USAA Tops 2015 Temkin Forgiveness Ratings

Every organization makes mistakes, so forgiveness is an important element of loyalty. That’s why we just published the 2015 Temkin Forgiveness Ratings, the fifth year of the ratings. It uses feedback from 10,000 U.S. consumers to rate the level of forgiveness earned by 293 organizations across 20 industries (see .pdf with full list). You can see all of the company data on the Temkin Ratings website.

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USAA took the top three spots for each of its business areas, earning a Temkin Forgiveness Rating of 61% for its credit card division and a rating of 60% apiece for its banking and insurance divisions. ACE Rent A Car came in fourth place overall with a Rating of 57%, and Amazon.com and Publix rounded out the top six with ratings of 55% each.

On the bottom of the list, Consolidated Edison Company of NY and Coventry Health Care tied for last place, each with a Temkin Forgiveness Rating of 3%. Also in the bottom six were Comcast (for both its TV service and Internet service businesses) and Time Warner (also for both its TV service and Internet service businesses).

Only 13% of companies earned a “very strong” Temkin Forgiveness Rating (above 45%), while 42% earned a “strong” rating (35% to 45%). Meanwhile, 3% of companies received a “very weak” Rating (below 15%), and 15% received a “weak” rating (15% to 25%).

Here are some more highlights from the 2015 Temkin Forgiveness Ratings:

• With a score of 47%, supermarket chains were the only industry to earn a “very strong” average Forgiveness Rating and outpaced its nearest competition by six percentage-points. Seven other industries earned a “good” Forgiveness average: retailers, computer & tablet makers, parcel delivery services, fast food chains, auto dealers, major appliances, and banks. On the other hand, TV service providers (17%) and Internet service providers (16%) both received average scores in the “weak” range.
• Five companies scored over 20 percentage-points above their industry averages: USAA for credit cards (30 points above average), USAA for insurance (25 points above average), USAA for banks (24 points above average), ACE Rent A Car for rental cars (23 points above average), and TriCare for health plans (22 points above average).
• Five companies scored more than 15 percentage-points below their industry averages: Consolidated Edison Company of NY for utilities (28 points below average), Coventry Health Care for health plans (24 points below average), RadioShack for retailers (20 points below average), Spirit Airlines for airlines (18 points below average), and Travelers for insurance (17 points below average).
• US Cellular improved its Forgiveness Rating by more than any other company between 2014 and 2015, increasing its score by 29 percentage-points. The five other companies to improve their scores by more than 15 percentage-points over the last year are HSBC (+24 points), Sheraton (+20 points), Sony (+19 points), Scottrade (+17 points), and American Family (+17 points). In total, 43% of companies that were in both the 2014 and 2015 Forgiveness Ratings improved their score by at least one point.
• Days Inn’s Forgiveness Rating declined more than any other company’s over the last year, down 19 percentage-points. The other four other companies whose scores dropped by more than 15 percentage-points are BMW (-18 points), Super 8 (-17 points), Coventry Health Care (-16 points), and Cox Communication for TV service (-16 points). In total, 37% of companies that were in both the 2014 and the 2015 Forgiveness Ratings decreased their score by at least one point.
• Only nine of the 19 industries we looked at in both 2014 and 2015 improved their Temkin Forgiveness Rating over the last year. Computer & tablet makers increased the most, going up 6.2 percentage-points since 2014, while auto dealers declined the most, dropping 2.4 percentage-points in the past year.

Download dataset for $295 (download sample file)

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

Methodology:

The data was collected from an online survey of 10,000 U.S. consumers during January 2015. Quotas were set to mirror the U.S. census data for age, income, gender, ethnicity, and geographic regions of the U.S. population.

The Temkin Forgiveness Ratings are based on asking consumers the following question about companies with whom they’ve interacted during the previous 60 days: “How likely are you to forgive these companies if they deliver a bad experience?” Potential responses range from 1= “Extremely unlikely” to 7= “Extremely likely.” Temkin Forgiveness Rating for a company is calculated by taking the percentages of consumers who respond with a 6 or 7 and subtracting the percentage who responded with 1, 2, or 3.

You can view a sortable list of results from the Temkin Trust Ratings as well as other ratings on the Temkin Ratings website.