Supermarkets Lead in Consumer Service: Poll

ROCHESTER, N.Y. -- Supermarkets do the best job of serving consumers, according to the results of a Harris Poll that were released yesterday. Ninety-one percent of adults think supermarkets generally perform well, with just eight percent believing otherwise, giving the industry a net positive score of 83 percentage points. At the bottom of the list, were tobacco companies, with 34 percent, and oil companies, at 36 percent.

Among the other industries that garnered high net scores were computer software companies, with 67 percentage points; packaged food companies (59 percentage points); and online retailers (56 percentage points).

This year's net score for supermarkets is slightly down from last year's 84, but is still higher than the net scores for 74 and 79 received in 2003 and 2004, respectively.

Harris Interactive first started began its survey ranking industries by how well they serve consumers in 1997. The latest poll was conducted by telephone within the United States between April 4 and April 10 among a nationwide cross section of 1,016 adults age 18 and over. Figures for age, sex, race, education, and region were weighted where necessary to align them with their actual proportions in the population.