Emotion, commonly understood as the most significant driver of customer loyalty, can pay huge dividends for companies. And for the food industry; that’s a good thing. According to the 2016 Temkin Emotion Ratings, consumers are very happy with their food outlets and grocery stores, especially compared to some other industries.
Traditionally a part of the Temkin Experience Ratings, the company pulled out the emotional aspect of the survey and examined 294 companies across 20 industries. Based on the responses of 10,000 U.S. consumers, Temkin found that Publix Super Markets and Chick-fil-A ranked first and second in the emotional ratings. H-E-B, True Value, Kroger, Save-a-Lot, Wawa Food Market and Amazon were also ranked in the top ten.
Comparatively, there wasn’t a single food industry company on the bottom of the list, which was filled with telecom providers and healthcare organizations. In fact, the supermarket and fast food industries earned the highest average grades (both at “okay” level), while health plants, TV service providers and Internet providers were hit with “very poor ratings.”
The trend wasn’t isolated to 2016 alone, either. The ratings found that supermarkets actually improved between 2014 and 2016, with emotional approval ratings rising from 64% in 2014 to 68% in 2015 to 69% in 2016. Fast food chains also saw a similar rise, from 61% in 2014 to 66% in 2015 to 67% in 2016.