US consumers report fewest negative customer experiences with grocery chains, are least likely to abandon retailers following a bad experience: Temkin Group

Cindy Allen

WABAN, Massachusetts , December 18, 2012 (press release) – Temkin Group, a leading market research and consulting firm that helps organizations improve their customer experience, released a new research report: "What Happens After A Good or Bad Experience?" The study, based on a survey of 5,000 U.S. consumers, analyzes feedback and purchase behaviors after good and bad experiences.

The report shows that consumers encounter bad experiences most frequently with TV service providers, retailers, and Internet service providers, but report the fewest bad experiences with grocery chains. Consumers respond differently to bad experiences across the 19 industries in the study. More than one-third of consumers who had a bad experience with a rental car agency, credit card issuer, computer company, or auto dealer completely stopped spending with the company. Fortunately for retailers and Internet service providers, their customers are the least likely to abandon them after a bad experience.

The research also examines how consumers respond to a company's service recovery efforts. When consumers feel that a company responded very poorly after a bad experience, almost three-quarters of them stopped or decreased their spending with the company. On the other hand, when companies had a very good response, less than one out of five decreased their spending and more than one-third increased their spending.

"Every company delivers some bad experience, but the good ones build loyalty by quickly responding to these issues and learning from their mistakes," states Bruce Temkin , Customer Experience Transformist & Managing Partner of Temkin Group.

Here are some additional findings in the report:

• ING Direct, Holiday Inn Express, Whole Foods, and Holiday Inn have the fewest occurrences of bad experience, while Best Buy, QVC, Gap, and eBay have the most.
• More consumers give feedback directly to the company after a very bad experience than they do after a very good experience.
• The use of Twitter to communicate about a very bad experience has more than doubled over the last year. Consumers who earn at least $100,000 are more than twice as likely to tweet about a bad experience than those making $50,000 or less.
• More than one-third of consumers between the ages of 18 and 24 write about their good and bad experiences on Facebook.
• Cox Communications, Symantec, ING Direct, and TracFone are the most likely to have negatively biased comments on Facebook, while Cablevision, AOL, Kaiser Permanente, and Holiday Inn are the most likely to have positively biased comments.
• Verizon and GE are the most likely to have negatively biased comments on Twitter, while Avis and Edward Jones are most likely to have positively biased tweets.

* All content is copyrighted by Industry Intelligence, or the original respective author or source. You may not recirculate, redistrubte or publish the analysis and presentation included in the service without Industry Intelligence's prior written consent. Please review our terms of use.