Arnie Weissmann
How do travel companies' customer service abilities compare to other industries?
The research company HundredX, in partnership with Forbes, received more than 200,000 responses to their queries regarding 3,000 companies. They asked about five components of customer service related to staff behavior, delivery or interactions, speed of delivery, ancillary services and resolution of problems.
For an industry that regularly touts that it's the second-largest in the world and which takes pride in hospitality being at the core of its products, the results for travel companies were not impressive.
Of the enterprises rated across 45 industrial segments, a significant portion -- eight -- were in the travel industry. Results for the top 300 companies were released by HundredX and Forbes, and 42 were in the travel industry, which is not bad. Most rankings, however, were not particularly high. The best placement was No. 25, Hawaiian Airlines.
Hotel companies' hospitality apparently doesn't impress guests very much. The top-rated brand, Drury, came in at No. 56. Omni was next at 85, and the large hotel corporations didn't show up until No. 147 (Marriott's Westin).
Hilton (188) and Hyatt (212) are apparently not, as the Village People noted, as much fun to stay at as the YMCA (186) -- though, to be fair, the Y was listed in the Fitness Center category.
Hilton's Home2 Suites was No. 210, Hyatt Place placed at 224, Courtyard by Marriott ranked 232nd, and sister brand SpringHill Suites was two places behind them. Hilton Garden Inn was No. 249, Marriott's Renaissance came in at 283 and Hilton's Doubletree trailed at 291, squeaking in above, among a few others, Smoothie King.
Given the relatively meh showing by hotels, airlines didn't, on the whole, do as badly as one might expect. The next listed after Hawaiian was Delta at No. 39, followed by Alaska at 43. Emirates made an appearance at 64, Lufthansa at 102. Southwest, which I recall in past surveys had ranked fairly highly, appeared at No. 112. Those in the bottom half of the full list -- JetBlue at 165, British Airways at 172, American at 252 and United at 266 -- all trailed the U.S. Postal Service (No. 137).
Disney Cruise Line was tops in its category, ranking No. 58. Royal Caribbean International appeared at 69, Carnival Cruise Line placed at 126, Viking at 201, Holland America at 207 and Celebrity --below the Mayo Clinic but above Dunkin' -- was 244. No other cruise line made the top 300.
The level of hospitality at casinos and resorts did not fare better than other hotels. The Venetian ranked highest at No. 98. Wynn Resorts was 141, MGM Resorts came in at 152, Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino placed at 182, Mohegan Sun was 202, Caesars Entertainment ranked No. 256, Foxwoods Resorts showed up at 290 and Harrah's (owned by Caesars Entertainment) brought up the rear at 293.
Two companies that sell travel, American Express and AAA, came in at No. 16 and No. 295, respectively, but neither was judged as a travel seller. Amex was a credit card company; AAA, insurance. The only travel retailer listed was Booking.com, at No. 271. One would have to conclude that brand awareness of travel agencies is low, or lowly regarded.
One theme park did reasonably well: Dollywood came in at No. 27. Then things take a turn: Legoland was 179, but neither Disney nor Universal appeared on the list.
Similarly, a number of the car rental agencies you'd expect to be there -- Hertz and Avis, most conspicuously -- were absent. National made a decent showing at No. 66, its parent Enterprise was 90, and Alamo, also part of the Enterprise family, was 285 (immediately above Tiffany & Co.!). The only other auto rental company listed was one that you may never have heard of: Turo, a book-online car-sharing company, ranked No. 118. Ride-sharing made an appearance at 213, with Lyft; Uber was not listed.
Who can travel companies look to in order to improve their customer experiences? Auto repair and maintenance, convenience stores, apparel and footwear and home furnishings all came in ahead of the first ranked travel company. It used to be that retail brands hired travel industry professionals to improve service; perhaps it should go the other way around.
What was most surprising to me was the absence of luxury travel companies. I assumed that could be because, out of the 201,000 respondents, a smaller percentage could afford luxury. I asked HundredX whether they weighted, for instance, responses about regional vs. national stores differently to keep it from being a mere popularity contest (I had noticed several regional grocery stores were highly ranked).
The response was no: "The exact same methodology [was applied] for all brands measured." Perhaps Four Seasons and Silversea were not among the brands measured?
As for the disappointing showing of most hotels and casinos, I have my suspicions about what common practice might have hurt their ratings.
It starts with "resort" and ends with "fees."
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this column incorrectly stated that there were 4 million respondents to the survey. HundredX received 4 million survey answers, but the number of people who responded to the survey was 201,000.