The national customer satisfaction benchmark improved in the fourth quarter of 2012, rising 0.5 percent to an ACSI score of 76.3 on a scale of 0 to 100. "While most of the gain is due to improvements in the public sector - with marked increases in citizen evaluations of both federal and local government services, according to the American Customer Satisfaction Index's 2012 government report - the national index also is helped by higher customer satisfaction in the Retail and E-Commerce sector," according a paper authored by University of Michigan professor Claes Fornell, who developed the ACSI. Customer satisfaction with supermarkets improved by 1.3 percent, despite rising prices. "Among supermarket chains, Publix reigns when it comes to customer satisfaction, just as it has done in every year since the American Customer Satisfaction Index's inception in 1994," according to the paper. Office Depot, meanwhile, was tops in the category among retailers. "Office Depot is transitioning from large, warehouse-type outlets to smaller, more intimate stores with better customer service," Fornell wrote. "So far, the strategy seems to be paying off." And when it comes to department stores it's probably no surprise that Nordstrom leads the way. The company in the fourth quarter had an unchanged ACSI score of 84.
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