“The customer is always right” is a motto dating back more than a century, popularized in one variation or another by successful American and European retailers.
But not only is this aphorism often wrong — customers are not always right — but companies have not always valued the relationship between customer service and customer satisfaction or have had tools to measure this value.
That began changing noticeably in the 1990s, during the nascent emergence of technology that facilitated easier channels of communication between buyer and seller. Then, companies began to place a greater emphasis on measuring and improving satisfaction among their customers in order to grow brand loyalty, and most importantly, to collect data. Today, the internet, social media, artificial intelligence, and new methods of data analysis have made it easier for companies to formulate better customer-satisfaction approaches.
To identify the year Americans were most satisfied with customer service, 24/7 Wall St. reviewed the American Customer Satisfaction index for each quarter going back to the year 1994. (Today, these are America’s best industries for customer satisfaction.)
After years of gradual improvements, customer satisfaction in the U.S. began to waver in 2019, according to the ACSI. It declined further and faster during the pandemic, which could be explained at least in part by staffing shortages that have irked many customers during the so-called Great Resignation. (This is the American company with the worst reputation.)
This recent erosion in customer service comes after the ACSI found 2017 and 2018 to have been the best years for customer service since the group began tracking the data in the early ‘90s. Though still higher than in 1997 (the lowest year for U.S. customer satisfaction based on the ACSI records), last year was the lowest for customer satisfaction since 2005.
Here are the levels of U.S. customer satisfaction by year
To identify the year Americans were most satisfied with customer service, 24/7 Wall St. reviewed the American Customer Satisfaction index for each quarter going back to the year 1994.
Source: Phil Cole / Getty Images
1994
> Best ACSI score of the year: 74.8 in quarter 3
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Source: Public Domain / Wikimedia Commons
1995
> Best ACSI score of the year: 74.1 in quarter 1
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Source: Jeff J Mitchell / Getty Images
1996
> Best ACSI score of the year: 73.0 in quarter 1
Source: Doug Pensinger / Getty Images
1997
> Best ACSI score of the year: 71.1 in quarter 2
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Source: Space Frontiers / Getty Images
1998
> Best ACSI score of the year: 72.6 in quarter 4
Source: USAF / Getty Images
1999
> Best ACSI score of the year: 72.8 in quarter 4
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Source: NASA / Getty Images
2000
> Best ACSI score of the year: 72.9 in quarter 3
Source: Mark Wilson / Getty Images
2001
> Best ACSI score of the year: 72.6 in quarter 4
Source: Mark Wilson / Getty Images
2002
> Best ACSI score of the year: 73.1 in quarter 3
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Source: Scott Barbour / Getty Images
2003
> Best ACSI score of the year: 74.0 in quarter 4
Source: Chris Jackson / Getty Images
2004
> Best ACSI score of the year: 74.4 in quarter 1
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2005
> Best ACSI score of the year: 73.5 in quarter 4
Source: Wathiq Khuzaie / Getty Images
2006
> Best ACSI score of the year: 74.9 in quarter 4
Source: David Paul Morris / Getty Images
2007
> Best ACSI score of the year: 75.3 in quarter 2
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2008
> Best ACSI score of the year: 75.7 in quarter 4
Source: Alex Wong / Getty Images
2009
> Best ACSI score of the year: 76.1 in quarter 2
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Source: Chris Graythen / Getty Images
2010
> Best ACSI score of the year: 75.9 in quarter 1
Source: Majid Saeedi / Getty Images
2011
> Best ACSI score of the year: 75.8 in quarter 4
Source: Peter Macdiarmid / Getty Images
2012
> Best ACSI score of the year: 76.3 in quarter 4
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Source: Michael Buckner / Getty Images
2013
> Best ACSI score of the year: 76.8 in quarter 4
Source: Sean Gallup / Getty Images
2014
> Best ACSI score of the year: 76.5 in quarter 1
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Source: NASA / Getty Images
2015
> Best ACSI score of the year: 76.2 in quarter 1
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Source: Scott Olson / Getty Images
2016
> Best ACSI score of the year: 76.7 in quarter 4
Source: NASA / Getty Images
2017
> Best ACSI score of the year: 77.0 in quarter 1
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Source: Justin Sullivan / Getty Images
2018
> Best ACSI score of the year: 77.0 in quarter 3
Source: Anthony Kwan / Getty Images
2019
> Best ACSI score of the year: 76.5 in quarter 1
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Source: flyparade / Getty Images
2020
> Best ACSI score of the year: 75.4 in quarter 1
Source: Alex Wong / Getty Images
2021
> Best ACSI score of the year: 73.7 in quarter 3
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