Publix Supermarket Ranks First By Consumers

10,000 U.S. consumers rated their recent interactions with 331 companies across 20 industries, and this year, Publix and H-E-B deliver the best customer experience in the supermarket industry, according to the 2017 Experience Ratings by the Temkin Group, a firm specialized in customer experience research, consulting, and training.

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With a score of 84%, Publix received the highest score.  The supermarket chain is based in Lakeland, Florida, with 1,146 store locations in the Southeast.

Likewise, H-E-B earned the second highest score for both the supermarket industry and the overall ratings with a score of 83%. H-E-B is based in San Antonio, Texas, with more than 350 stores throughout the state of Texas, as well as in northeast Mexico.

Hannaford followed behind closely with a score of 82% and an overall rank of fourth. The supermarket chain is based in Scarborough, Maine with 189 store locations in the Northeast.

Overall, the supermarket industry averaged a 78% rating in the 2017 Temkin Experience. The average rating of the industry improved by four percentage-points between 2016 and 2017, going from 73.8% to 78.1%.

“Supermarkets have been the highest-scoring industry since their inclusion in the ratings in 2012, and this year was no different. Publix and H-E-B lead a strong group of supermarkets, all of which received at least a “good” rating,” states Bruce Temkin, managing partner of Temkin Group.

In the “2017 Temkin Experience Ratings” the best supermarket is Publix:

  • Publix: 84%
  • H-E-B: 83%
  • Hannaford: 82%
  • Food Lion: 81%
  • Trader Joe’s: 81%
  • AmazonFresh: 80%
  • Kroger: 80%
  • Save-A-Lot: 80%
  • Wegmans: 80%
  • Winn-Dixie: 80%
  • Hy-Vee: 78%
  • Whole Foods: 78%
  • Aldi: 77%
  • Giant Eagle: 77%
  • Albertsons: 76%
  • ShopRite: 76%
  • Stop & Shop: 75%
  • Vons: 75%
  • Piggly Wiggly: 74%
  • Wawa Food Markets: 73%
  • Safeway: 72%

The ratings for all supermarkets increased between 2016 and 2017, with the exception of Wawa Food Markets, whose score stayed the same. Vons improved the most, gaining 12 points, and Whole Foods improved the second most, gaining 10 points from last year.

In its seventh year of publication, the 2017 Temkin Experience Ratings is the most comprehensive benchmark of customer experience in the industry.

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.