America’s top supermarket chains are busy competing with each other and with non-traditional food retailers such as farmers’ markets, online outlets and even dollar stores to claim the loyalty of everyday grocery shoppers.
Slideshow: America’s Favorite Supermarkets, Ranked
They are adding new locations at a rapid rate and experimenting with new formats and private brands to defend their place in an increasingly complex and competitive market. So, which supermarket is America’s favorite?
Using company ratings from the Temkin Group, The Fiscal Times created its own ranking of America’s favorite U.S. supermarkets among the 24 largest chains.
TFT’s ranking uses Temkin Group’s experience, customer service, trust and forgiveness ratings for 2016. Temkin asked consumers to rate the success, effort and emotions associated with their experiences at each supermarket. The customer service ratings asked consumers to rate how satisfied they were with the service at each store. The forgiveness ratings asked consumers how likely they would be to forgive a company after it made a mistake. And the trust ratings asked consumers to measure how much they trust each store.
After analyzing the data, with greater weight placed on the experience and customer service ratings, one supermarket stood out above the others: Publix. The Florida-based chain has over 1,000 stores throughout the Southeast. At the other end of the spectrum, Walmart stood out for its low ratings from consumers. It seems that the mega-retailer has some work to do when it comes to customer satisfaction.
