Amazon.com secures the top spot in Forrester’s annual Customer Experience Index (CXi), which measures and ranks the customer experience of 175 large US brands, based on a survey of 7,500 US consumers. Amazon (specifically as a consumer electronics manufacturer for the Kindle) is closely followed by discount brands Old Navy, Kohl’s, and Courtyard by Marriott in the 2014 ranking, which asks consumers to select the companies they interact most with across 14 different industries (including retail, consumer electronics, banks, airlines, etc.) and to answer three questions about each brand in regard to customer experience: how enjoyable and easy they are to do business with, and how effective they are at meeting customer needs.

Additional rankings by industry include:

  • Consumer electronics: Amazon (Kindle) leads the pack, with Sony, Microsoft, Samsung, HP, and Apple in a dead heat behind the Kindle maker.
  • Retailers: A tight race, Old Navy, Kohl’s, Amazon, Costco, and Macy’s lead for customer experience.
  • Health insurance: Making the biggest jump since last year, health insurers saw an average 8-point increase with Kaiser leading the pack, followed closely by Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois, United Healthcare, and Humana.

This year’s CXi shows some major improvements by brands that have previously exhibited poor customer experiences: Twenty brands improved their scores on the CXi by 10 points or more since last year, with only 10% of brands falling into the “poor” customer experience category, compared with 17% in 2013. According to Vice President and Principal Analyst Megan Burns, while several macro factors likely contributed to the overall rise, many brands spent the better part of last year deliberately repairing broken experiences, leading to the improved scores. For instance, T-Mobile’s score improved 15 points from a 55 in 2013 to a 70 in 2014 based on its specific efforts to serve unmet customer needs with differentiated offerings.

To learn more about this research, visit the Customer Experience blog.