How Fast Food Fares

Chick-fil-A and Sonic Drive-In deliver the best customer experience in the fast food industry.

March 20/Waban, Mass./PRNewswire -- Chick-fil-A and Sonic Drive-In deliver the best customer experience in the fast food industry, according to the 2014 Temkin Experience Ratings, an annual ranking of companies based on a study of 10,000 U.S. consumers.

Chick-fil-A led the food chains for the third year in a row, landing it in 3rd place overall out of 268 companies across 19 industries. Sonic Drive-In came in a very close second with an overall ranking of 5th. Five other fast food chains earned an "excellent" rating: Dairy Queen, Starbucks, Little Caesar's, Subway and Burger King. The food chains with the lowest rated customer experience are McDonalds, Baskin Robins and Orange Julius.

"Chick-fil-A continues to stand out amid an industry that receives overall strong marks for customer experience," states Bruce Temkin, managing partner of Temkin Group.

Here are some additional findings from the fast food industry:

The ratings of all fast food chains in the 2014 Temkin Experience Ratings are as follows: Chick-fil-A (83%), Sonic Drive-In (82%), Dairy Queen (81%), Starbucks (81%), Little Caesar's (80%), Subway (80%), Burger King (80%), Pizza Hut (79%), Domino's (79%), Wendy's (79%), Arby's (77%), Taco Bell (77%), Dunkin' Donuts (76%), Jack in the Box (76%), Hardees (76%), KFC (76%), Quiznos (75%), McDonalds (75%), Baskin Robbins (73%) and Orange Julius (71%).
KFC (+9 points), Burger King (+5 points), Wendy's (+5 points) and Taco Bell (+5 points) improved their ratings the most between 2013 and 2014.
Dunkin' Donuts (-4 points), Arby's (-2 points) and Jack in the Box (-2 points) were the only fast food chains whose ratings declined between 2013 and 2014.
Overall, the fast food industry averaged a 78% rating in the 2014 Temkin Experience Ratings and placed 2nd out of 19 industries. It was also one of the 15 industries to improve its rating over the past year, increasing its average by 2.2 percentage points.

Now in its fourth year of publication, the 2014 Temkin Experience Ratings examines the quality of the customer experience delivered by 268 organizations across 19 industries: airlines, appliance makers, auto dealers, banks, car rental agencies, computer makers, credit card issuers, fast food chains, grocery chains, health plans, hotel chains, insurance carriers, Internet service providers, investment firms, parcel delivery services, retailers, software firms, TV service providers and wireless carriers.

To generate these ratings, Temkin Group asked consumers to evaluate their experiences with a company across three dimensions: functional (can you do what you want to do?), accessible (how easy is it to work with the company?), and emotional (how do you feel about the interactions?). Temkin Group then averaged these three scores to produce a company's Temkin Experience Rating.

In these ratings, a score of 70% or above is considered "good," and a score of 80% or above is considered "excellent."