Champs or Chumps? BusinessWeek's annual list of customer service standouts

BusinessWeek has just released their annual list of Top 25 Customer Service Champions.  Once again, there are some obvious choices along with a few head-scratchers.  A company like USAA with a legion of passionate, loyal customers seems like a great choice.  BusinessWeek gave them an A+ rating for quality of staff and 78% of customers surveyed would recommend the brand. No problems there.

But what about Enterprise Rent-a-Car, whose BusinessWeek report card includes a B for quality of staff and only 36% of customers surveyed would recommend the brand?  How did they get into the Top 25?! One obvious flaw in BusinessWeek's approach may explain why. J.D. Power's Customer Satisfaction ratings are the starting point for the BusinessWeek list. Enterprise Rent-a-Car won J.D. Power's 2009 Customer Satisfaction Award for the rental car category. Small problem: J.D. Power's 'Customer Satisfaction Award' never directly assessed customer service. Rather, it looked exclusively at six categories where customer perceptions may be influenced by customer service: costs and fees, pick-up process, rental car, return process, reservation process, shuttle bus/van.

What do you think? Who should be on the list and who shouldn't? Please leave your comments!

Click here to read the list.