NPS benchmark reveals US brand loyalty leaders

Satmetrix, the company behind the Net Promoter Score, has published the '2011 Net Promoter Industry Benchmarks' report for the insurance, financial services, airlines, telecommunications, technology, retail and online services industries  in the US.

This year's winners included well-known brands such as USAA, JetBlue Airways, Symantec, Trader Joe's, Vanguard, Amazon.com, Apple, Google, Costco and American Express.

The rankings are based on survey responses from more than 22,000 U.S. consumers nationwide, and include ratings for 170 individual brands across 17 industry sectors. Each consumer rates up to two companies from whom they have purchased products or services within the previous 12 months. A company's Net Promoter Score, or NPS, is based on customers' likelihood to recommend the company. (NPS is calculated as the percentage of customers who are Promoters, rating the company 9 or 10 on a zero-to-ten point scale, minus the percentage who are Detractors, rating 6 or lower.)

Consumers also rated each company on various aspects of customer experience, including product or service features, customer service and overall value, allowing Satmetrix to analyse drivers of loyalty and performance gaps for each company.
"Having a great customer experience is critical to a company's financial performance because it impacts both customer retention and new customer acquisition through word of mouth," said John Abraham, general manager of Net Promoter programmes for Satmetrix. "These benchmarks should allow companies to compare their performance with industry peers based on an industry-standard measure of customer loyalty."