Which airline offers the best customer service experience? Southwest Airlines, according to the 2014 Temkin Experience Ratings, which ranks companies annually. Southwest earned the top spot for the fourth year in a row.
Southwest Airlines earned a customer service rating of 71 percent, making it the 83rd company out of 268 across 19 industries, but as far as the airline industry goes, it was top dog. The airline with the lowest customer service rating was US Airways, making it the lowest for the third straight year. It has a 52% customer service rating.
"Southwest does a great job with customer experience and continues to set the bar for airlines," states Bruce Temkin, managing partner of Temkin Group.
The second highest rated airline was Alaska Airlines with 65 percent. Delta Airlines took third with 63 percent. American Airlines had 62 percent. United Airlines had 61 percent, JetBlue had 60 percent and AirTrain had 56 percent. The airline with the most improvement was American Airlines, jumping eight points. Despite being lowest, US Airways also saw improvement with a 7 point increase. United Airlines improved by 6 points. AirTran Airways saw the biggest drop with nine points.
Overall, the airline industry averaged a 61% rating in the 2014 Temkin Experience Ratings and tied for 13th place out of 19 industries. It is also one of the 15 industries to improve its rating over the past year, increasing its average by 1.2 percentage points.
The Temkin Experience Ratings have been done for the past four years. It looks at the quality of the customer experience delivered by 268 organizations across 19 industries: airlines, appliance makers, auto dealers, banks, car rental agencies, computer makers, credit card issuers, fast food chains, grocery chains, health plans, hotel chains, insurance carriers, Internet service providers, investment firms, parcel delivery services, retailers, software firms, TV service providers, and wireless carriers.
The ratings are based on customer evaluations. In these ratings, a score of 70% or above is considered "good," and a score of 80% or above is considered "excellent."
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