Chick-fil-A, Chipotle, and Hardees Earn Top Customer Experience Ratings for Fast Food Companies, According to Temkin Group
Chick-fil-A, Chipotle Mexican Grill, and Hardees deliver the best customer experience in the fast food industry, according to the 2017 Temkin Experience Ratings, an annual customer experience ranking of companies based on a survey of 10,000 U.S. consumers.
Chick-fil-A took the top spot out of the 24 fast food restaurants included in this year’s ratings, earning a score of 83% and coming in 2nd place overall out of 331 companies across 20 industries. Chipotle and Hardees tied for second place, each with a rating of 82% and an overall rank of 4th.
The ratings of all fast food restaurants in the 2017 Temkin Experience Ratings are as follows:
•Chick-fil-A: 83%
•Chipotle Mexican Grill: 82%
•Hardees: 82%
•Subway: 81%
•Arby’s: 80%
•KFC: 80%
•Baskin Robbins: 79%
•Dairy Queen: 79%
•Starbucks: 79%
•Dunkin’ Donuts: 78%
•Papa John’s: 78%
•IHOP: 77%
•Little Caesar’s: 77%
•Panera Bread: 77%
•Popeye’s Louisiana Kitchen: 75%
•Sonic Drive-In: 75%
•Burger King: 74%
•Panda Express: 74%
•Wendy’s: 74%
•Pizza Hut: 73%
•Domino’s: 72%
•Jack in the Box: 72%
•McDonald’s: 71%
•Taco Bell: 71%
“It’s impressive that every single fast food company we looked at delivers a customer experience that’s either “good” or “excellent,” states Bruce Temkin, managing partner of Temkin Group.
Overall, the fast food industry averaged a 76% rating in the 2017 Temkin Experience Ratings and came in 2nd place out of 20 industries. The average rating of the industry improved by five percentage-points between 2016 and 2017, going from 71.1% to 76.5%.
The ratings for all fast food restaurants increased between 2016 and 2017, except for Taco Bell, whose score decreased by two percentage-points. Baskin Robbins and KFC improved the most, each gaining 12 points in the last year.
Now in its seventh year of publication, the 2017 Temkin Experience Ratings is the most comprehensive benchmark of customer experience in the industry, evaluating 331 companies across 20 industries: airlines, auto dealers, banks, computer & tablet makers, 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, supermarket chains, TV & appliance makers, TV/Internet service providers, utilities, and wireless carriers.
To generate these ratings, Temkin Group asked 10,000 U.S. consumers to evaluate their recent experiences with a company across three dimensions: success (can you do what you want to do?), effort (how easy is it to work with the company?), and emotion (how do you feel about the interactions?). Temkin Group then averaged these three scores to produce each company’s Temkin Experience Rating.
In these ratings, a score of 70% or above is considered “good,” and a score of 80% or above is considered “excellent,” while a score below 60% is considered “poor.”
