Publix, Aldi, H-E-B Garner Top Customer Experience Ratings

Food retailers Publix, Aldi and H-E-B earned tops scores on the 2015 Temkin Experience Ratings, which ranks the quality of customer experience delivered by large organizations. Also among the top 12 were Trader Joe's and Hannaford.

Further down in the rankings came Hy-Vee, Costco, Food Lion, Kroger, ShopRite, Whole Foods, BJ's Wholesale Club, Albertsons, Sam's Club, Giant Eagle, Stop & Shop, Wegmans, Safeway, Target, Walmart, Kmart and Bi-Lo. Drug store chains Walgreens, Rite Aid and CVS, along with dollar store companies Dollar Tree, Dollar General and Family Dollar, also made the list.

"Customer experience drives loyalty, so it's a growing area of focus for most businesses," noted Bruce Temkin, managing partner of Waban, Mass.-based Temkin Group, a customer experience research and consulting firm. "Unfortunately, we still see chronically poor customer experience across TV service providers, Internet service providers and health plans."

Now in its fifth year of publication, the Temkin Experience Ratings examines customer experience across 20 industries. This year's ratings are based on a study of 10,000 U.S. consumers and rank 293 companies. Three areas of customer experience are evaluated: success (can customers do what they want to do?), effort (how easy is it to work with the company?), and emotion (how do consumers feel about their interactions?).