Top Investment Firms for Consumer Satisfaction: Temkin Group

Customer satisfaction with investment firms fell an average six percentage points in the latest annual Temkin Group "Experience Ratings" survey.

The two top firms scored 64% on the customer satisfaction survey, well above the average 57.4% for investment firms, but only Edward Jones and Morgan Stanley scored higher this year than last. The remaining 11 firms scored lower this year, led by Scottrade, which fell 12 points followed by Wells Fargo Advisors, down 11 points, and Fidelity, down 9 points.

None of the investment firms scored 70% or above, which is considered a "good" rating, according to the Temkin Group (80% or above is considered excellent).

Still, Bruce Temkin, managing partner of Temkin Group, said in a press release that "Fidelity's ability to consistently deliver the best customer experience in the investment industry is impressive, as is Edward Jones' and Morgan Stanley's ability to improve their customer experience in a year when most other companies declined."

Temkin Group's customer satisfaction ratings are based on an online survey of 10,000 consumers, conducted in January, which asked about their interactions with companies in 20 different industries during the previous 60 days. Investment firms ranked sixth overall, scoring in the top third of industries. Only 20% of the 294 companies included in this year's survey scored "good" or "excellent." Supermarkets and fast food chains topped the list, while TV service providers and health plans came in last.

In the survey consumers were asked to rate companies according to three variables:

Success of their interaction with a company – to what degree they were able to accomplish what they wanted to
Effort – how easy it was to interact with the company
Emotion – how they felt about the interaction

They ranked each component on a seven-point scale from worst to best. Then the percentage of consumers giving the lowest ratings were subtracted from the percentage of those that gave the highest rating for each component to come up with a "net goodness" percentage for each variable. The average of those three scores produced each company's Temkin Experience Rating.

Here are the rankings for the investment firm category: