How a company handles adversity can tell you a lot about its character. Does it stick to its guns, keeping the customer first? Or does it stick it to customers, raising prices and cutting service?
The recent economic turmoil has given companies a chance to prove their mettle. But many, particularly in the hard-hit financial-services industry, have failed to do so.
That's one message from 2009's MSN Money Customer Service Hall of Shame. For the third year in a row, MSN Money partnered with polling firm Zogby International to find out how customers think they are being treated by the nation's largest retailers and service providers.
The results of the 145-company survey, conducted in late April, capture which businesses are doing a good job of winning over customers in these tough times and which are clearly not.
Those that aren't may not come as a surprise. For the most part, banks and credit card issuers fared noticeably worse this year when it came to pleasing customers. About 65% of financial-services companies received more negative marks than positive marks this year, compared with 40% that did so last year.
9 repeat 'winners'
AOL, like last year, ranked worst in customer service in the 2009 survey, this time with 44.8% of respondents saying AOL's service was "poor," down from 46.6% a year ago. (To see what AOL and other companies had to say about their inclusion on this year's list, please click here.)
What may be surprising is not that these companies continue to do poorly but that their raw scores remain low at the very time other businesses are improving customer service in response to market uncertainty.
"The effect of the recession has been quite different from what we've seen in the past," said Claes Fornell, a business professor at the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business and head of the American Customer Satisfaction Index. "They are cutting people, and they are cutting costs, but the remaining people are working harder, and it seems to be of a higher quality."
One retailer, however, made a repeat appearance in the Hall of Shame: Abercrombie & Fitch (ANF, news, msgs), which continues to irk its customers by catering exclusively to "cool, good-looking people."
The MSN Money-Zogby International survey listed companies in 15 industries, including airlines, hotels and mail delivery outfits. Respondents were asked whether they had experience with each company's customer service and, if so, to rate it "excellent," "good," "fair" or "poor."
Companies were ranked based on the percentage of opinion responses that were "poor."
MSN Money slide show
Here's the countdown to No. 1, based on the percentage of respondents who rated a company's customer service 'poor' in a recent poll. (Also, see 10 companies that treat you right.)
For the third year in a row, telecommunications and financial-services companies dominated the top of the "poor" rankings. In addition, their raw scores did not improve over last year's.
So why is it that as other industries strive to improve customer service in the face of economic difficulties, these companies continue, for the most part, to make customers so unhappy?
The Hall of Shame
1. AOL's response. Post your experiences here.2. Comcast's response. Post your experiences here.
3. Sprint Nextel's response. Post your experiences here.
4. Capital One's response. Post your experiences here
5. Time Warner Cable's response. Post your experiences here.
6. HSBC's response. Post your experiences here.
7. Qwest's response. Post your experiences here.
8. Abercrombie & Fitch's response. Post your experiences here.
9. Bank of America's response. Post your experiences here.
10. Citigroup's response. Post your experiences here.
Click here to see the full list of companies.
Continued: Making bad situations worse
More from MSN Money
- See the full list of customer-service rankings
- Share your customer-service horror stories
- 7 ways to win the customer-service game
- Check out 2008's Hall of Shame
- Why we hate cell phone companies