The discount grocery chain, which has 85 stores spread throughout NY and the mid-Atlantic region, was chosen as the number one supermarket by the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) this week.
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The American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) constantly polls consumers to measure their satisfaction with the products and services they buy. That’s nearly 10 points below the entire retail sector’s overall score.
Abercrombie’s score was the lowest across all six different sector categories, including department and discount stores, specialty retail stores and supermarkets. Wegmans, one of three retailers to improve customer satisfaction, gained 1% to 86 and became one of the highest-scoring companies in the Index.
The survey questioned 9,358 customers about their recent shopping experiences at America’s biggest retailers. This should come as no surprise to the retail chain as it has ranked as the lowest among discount and department stores since 2006. And in home improvement, Lowe’s and Home Depot came within a point of one another, their closest scores in the last five years. This was the second year in a row that customer satisfaction with the retail experience dropped. A possible reason for why Abercrombie and Fitch scored a point below Walmart is alleged discrimination toward consumers, and this could spell serious trouble for the clothing store. Walmart remains in the basement with a score of 66. Barnes & Noble makes the top three with an ACSI score of 79, above average for the industry, but well behind its largest competitor, the online juggernaut Amazon (83). Competition for natural and organic foods has heated up as Whole Foods struggles with a reputation among food shoppers for unjustifiably high prices. Some of the greatest sins in customer service include employees being too busy “doing their jobs” to actually focus on the people supplying their income. Besides Wegmans, only gas stations improved in customer satisfaction from 2014, mainly due to lower fuel prices. Dillard’s scores an 80, followed by Kohl’s, 77, Target, 75, and JC Penney 74.
While Internet retailers scored higher than brick-and-mortar stores, even they saw a decline in customer satisfaction, with an ACSI score of 80, down 2.4 percent.
In addition to its high marks with customers, Wegmans has made Fortune magazine’s list of “100 Best Companies to Work For” each of the past he past 17 years.
“We survey millions of customers throughout the year and receive great feedback on our efforts to deliver clean stores, fast checkouts and a friendly store environment”, Walmart spokesperson Danit Marquardt said in a statement.
Among dollar stores, Dollar Tree (76) edged out Dollar General (74).
There’s good news for Walmart and bad news for Abercrombie & Fitch based on a new list of hated retail shops. L Brands reported a net sales increase of 8 percent for the fourth quarter of 2015. “Closing stores and reducing workforce might help the bottom line in the short term, but only at the expense of customer satisfaction, which could create problems in the long term”.
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Large Drug Stores Lag in Health & Personal Care StoresHealth and personal care stores suffer a steeper decline in customer satisfaction than any other retail category, shedding 5.2 percent to a record low of 73. The survey is run by the University of MI.
