Lexus, Kia win top customer experience ratings from Temkin Group

(March 30, 2017) WABAN, Mass. — Lexus and Kia deliver the best customer experience across auto dealers, according to the 2017 Temkin Experience Ratings, an annual customer experience ranking of companies based on a survey of 10,000 U.S. consumers. Lexus took the top spot out of the 21 auto dealers included in this year's ratings, earning a score of 77% and coming in 38th place overall out of 331 companies across 20 industries.

Kia came in second place with a score of 74% and an overall rank of 74th, only narrowly ahead of both Chevrolet and Toyota, each of which received a rating of 73% and came in 90th place overall.

The ratings of all auto dealers in the 2017 Temkin Experience Ratings are as follows:

    Lexus: 77%
    Kia: 74%
    Chevrolet: 73%
    Toyota: 73%
    Mercedes-Benz: 72%
    Volkswagen: 72%
    Jeep: 71%
    Nissan: 71%
    Ford: 69%
    Subaru: 69%
    Cadillac: 68%
    Buick: 67%
    Honda: 67%
    Audi: 66%
    Hyundai: 66%
    BMW: 64%
    Chrysler: 63%
    Dodge: 62%
    GMC: 62%
    Mazda: 61%
    CarMax: 60%

"Congratulations to Lexus for its leading the auto deal industry this year and to the entire industry for making such substantial improvements over the past year," states Bruce Temkin, managing partner of Temkin Group.

Overall, the auto dealer industry averaged a 69% rating in the 2017 Temkin Experience Ratings and came in 9th place out of 20 industries. The average rating of the industry improved by twelve percentage-points between 2016 and 2017, going from 57.1% to 68.6%.

The ratings for all auto dealers increased between 2016 and 2017. Volkswagen improved the most, gaining 28 points, while Hyundai improved the least, gaining only five points.

Now in its seventh year of publication, the 2017 Temkin Experience Ratings is the most comprehensive benchmark of customer experience in the industry, evaluating 331 companies across 20 industries: airlines, auto dealers, banks, computer & tablet makers, credit card issuers, fast food chains, health plans, hotels & rooms, insurance carriers, investment firms, parcel delivery services, rental cars & transport, retailers, software firms, streaming media, supermarket chains, TV & appliance makers, TV/Internet service providers, utilities, and wireless carriers.

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.