The 15 Most Disliked Companies in America (Current)

[AsahinaKimi]

The most disliked companies in America once again include airlines, utilities and banks, according to the latest cycle of ratings from the American Customer Satisfaction Index.

Service industries typically score worse than manufacturing because of limited competition and the difficulty of interacting with customers.

"Where companies have little or no competition or where customers encounter barriers to switching among competitors in terms of cost and/or convenience, companies may not need to satisfy their customers to the same degree in order to keep them," ACSI's David VanAmburg says.

This opens an opportunity for some companies like JetBlue, however, that can excel in unpopular industries.

ACSI's customer satisfaction rating has been shown to be strongly related to financial performance.


more...http://finance.yahoo.com/news/the-15-most-disliked-companies-in-america.html?page=1

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Companies named:
#1 Long Island Power Authority
#2 Northeast Utilities
#3 Charter Communications
#4 Comcast (Television service)
#5 United Airlines
#6 Time Warner
#7 Cox Communications (Television Service)
#8 American Airlines
#9 US Airways
#10 Delta
#11 CenturyLink
#12 Facebook
#13 Aetna
#14 DirectTV
#15 Bank of America

[TeamPooka]

1. BOA should be higher on the list

those folks are sucktastic.

[Liberal_in_LA]

13. +1

[Johonny]

24. sadly I like them more than Chase

who took Wamu and killed everything that made it attractive as a bank

[Jack Rabbit]

44. They should both be on the list

Along with Goldman Sachs, Monsanto and Koch Industries.

[sakabatou]

47. +2

[demosincebirth]

2. You can add AT&T among the top five.

[AsahinaKimi]

4. I was gonna suggest

Clear channel and Fox News Corp!!!

[Art_from_Ark]

54. Fox and Clear Channel should be in a 10-way tie for worst

[Aerows]

34. Exactly

I'm shocked they aren't on the list!

[shugah]

49. AT&T for sure

i can't believe comcast is on the list but not AT& $%^&%$*# T. i will die before i ever do any business with them again.

[glowing]

3. Is this America or NY City? Long Island Power Authority is quite specific...

Comcast is something I don't have any access to in my area... But I could put cable companies up there. AT&T, Sprint, Verizon (cell phone services) didn't make the list? Yet, Facebook did? I would assume that was because of the big flop when it went onto the stock market, and wouldn't Wall St be the one's investing over middle-America?

[truedelphi]

15. It seems to be a pretty East Coast list.

I mean, I am rather sure the utility companies in NY state and New England are not anyone's favorites, but so far no one in those places has lost a whole neighborhood because their utility companyu let ancient pipes remain in place. (As happened with PG& E and Burlingame Calif.)

[Sirveri]

21. It was in San Bruno (about 2 blocks from my old child hood home)

[truedelphi]

22. Thank you for the clarification.

Glad to hear that (maybe) your childhood home survived. But to think we pride ourselves on our nation's "stringent safety laws," and blah blah blah.

Were you in the area when it happened?

[Sirveri]

32. No, I moved to the East bay after I left the house, and my mom retired to Sacto.

But still, it's kinda crazy because I know that area pretty well and to just think about seeing a massive fireball there is kind of strange.

[Egalitarian Thug]

25. Dont' you know?

[stevedeshazer]

43. As someone who lives in a blank spot, thanks for the NYC-Centric map.

We actually live here.

[Egalitarian Thug]

46. Me too. But I did live there for awhile and this isn't far off. n/t

[NutmegYankee]

57. It based on customer ratings.

Obviously their customers rated them worse than any other company out there.

[lpbk2713]

5. Verizon should be there

And BofA should be in the top half IMO.

[easttexaslefty]

19. I agree

Verizon sucks.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

6. Heh. I just retired from one of them.

[bigwillq]

8. Zuckerberg, is that you?

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

9. I wish.

[Yavin4]

7. DirectTV? I Thought That Everyone Loved Them

What gives?

[demosincebirth]

16. I have it...I like it.

[zappaman]

18. I've always got great service from DTV

and have often said I wish more companies were as accommodating to their customers as they are.

[hobbit709]

20. I haven't had any problems with them.

[BeyondGeography]

28. Their rural Internet service is a sucky, $70/month rip-off

And their TV deal is third-rate compared with, say, Fios. I'll be switching to Verizon for everything now that they're in my neck of the woods.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

36. How do they get away with advertising only introductory prices?

I don't have DirecTV but I notice their ads and don't see the usual fine print at the end revealing prices after the introductory period.

[pipoman]

10. Rival/Jarden/Sunbeam for me..

they have zero quality control and are buying up long established names associated with quality and ruining them. White Mountain Ice Cream freezers are among the products destroyed by this multi-national group of pillagers.

Surprised at DirecTV..I have had good luck with them so far..9 years.

[PoliticAverse]

11. The Long Island Power Authority is a non-profit municipal electric provider...

http://www.lipower.org/company/

[Tanuki]

12. Koch Industries, Halliburton, BP, and many more got a pass

This reminds me of "most admired" or "hero" lists that consist mainly of entertainment and sports celebrities.

[HopeHoops]

14. Where's WalMart?

[Reader Rabbit]

68. I was wondering that, too.

If for no other reason than providing a venue that leads to The People of Walmart

[RebelOne]

17. I am a customer of both Bank of America and Comcast.

And I have never had a problem with either of them. They have both treated me very fairly whenever I had a complaint.

[quakerboy]

62. Whereas I have had no end of trouble with both

Comcast has an affinity for playing with the rates that I find annoying. But, less annoying and more problematic, they like to decide to start charging me for a modem rental every 6 months or so, even though I have always made a point of owning my own. To be fair to them, they are not really any worse than any other similar service, as far as I can tell.

BoA has stolen money from me. Not in fees or some language trickery. They just flat stole cash from several deposits.

[Chellee]

70. You are not alone.

BoA flat out stole $400 from me. That was 25 years ago and I'm still so angry that if they gave the money back with interest today, I would still tell everyone I meet to never do business with BoA. They're thieves.

[Initech]

23. What a boring ass list. Where's Monsanto? Bain Capital? Massey Energy? Goldman Sachs? British Petroleum? Exxon Mobil?

[Lebam in LA]

26. Direct TV??

I love Direct TV. Very surprised

[Lindsay]

27. Interesting but obviously

highly subjective.

I have Charter cable and internet and have had very positive experience with them, particularly with their internet service people. OTOH, I deal with people in Spartanburg, SC. I have heard that the Charter in Asheville is dreadful - and that all pale in comparison with the suckitude that is Comcast.

So my conclusion is that there's a lotta suck and it's all a crapshoot.

[xmas74]

31. Charter where I live tends to be a rip-off

but they know that they can be, since they are the only cable service in the area. (And by area I mean multiple counties.) You'll make a payment at the local office and two weeks later you'll receive a phone call from a call center, stating they don't have a payment on file. And internet service can be a crapshoot with them too.

I really hate Charter.

[xmas74]

29. I freakin' hate Charter!

They have a monopoly in my area. I also have no love for CenturyLink.

Verizon should be added to the list. I had a phone with them for one month, didn't use all my minutes, and received a bill of $800.00. (It was just one line and I stayed within the plan.) I cancelled my service after repeated attempts to get a bill showing every charge and an explanation was never sent to me.

Five years later and I still get regular phone calls from collection agencies, wanting me to pay it. I would have paid the bill five years ago if they had given me what I asked for, since I planned on disputing most of the charges. Every call I get I explain this to them, telling them that I'm disputing the bill. Arguments ensue, threats of going to court are made with me telling them to take me since I'd love to see the bill and plan to dispute it there. As of this time, nothing has ever happened, except harassing phone calls.

[lob1]

30. I'm surprised that Direct TV is on the list.

I've had Direct for years and have had no problems. Dish, on the other hand, is a total piece of shit. When I had Dish, I slowly lost my reception. Dish refused to fix it, and refused to let me out of my contract. I stopped paying them. Six years later, Dish set a collection agency after me to collect $68. I didn't pay the $68 and told them to go fuck themselves.

[NutmegYankee]

33. Northeast Utilities- Yeah, that's obvious.

Parent company of Connecticut Light and Power, dedicated to giving you neither in a reliable or cost effective manner.

[Massacure]

35. I'm surprised with Time Warner.

I have Time Warner for Cable, Internet, and Phone. I've had signal issues with them a couple of times over the last decade, but they've always come out within 24 hours to fiddle with the booster, and they've always fixed it first time.

My aunt has ATT's U-Verse and boy do they suck donkey balls the few times from the few times I've had to deal with them when helping her with 'computer issue'.

[Curmudgeoness]

42. As someone whose choice for cable is Time Warner or Time Warner,

I think that it is true what was said in the article---when you have no other options, it causes more hostility. Every year, year after year, prices went up way beyond the rate of inflation. Doubled in five years. I gave up and I resent that I have no other option unless I go with dish (and I have heard that can be a problem when there is snow, storms, etc.)

[Dawson Leery]

37. The TBTF banks should be tied at the top of that list

along with Monsanto and Koch Industries.

[NutmegYankee]

39. It's based on a Survey.

Most people are not aware of Koch or Monsanto. Crappy overpriced electric service on the other hand...

[ananda]

38. ATT should be in the top five.

nt

[agentS]

40. Charter is still horrible after all these years?

They were terrible when I was in college. Constant outages, scrambly signal, terrible billing management. My roommate was stuck with them for digital cable because they had a monopoly at the campus housing.

Facebook is one that I am surprised of. IT's not exactly a necessary service like a power company. what are they doing wrong in the customer's eyes?

[stevedeshazer]

41. The worst company ever is Wells Fargo.

It should be #1.

[OKDem08]

52. Standing ovation!

[99Forever]

45. Not a single Big Oil pig on the list?

meh.


Fail.

[lonestarnot]

48. Massive fucking fail, no BP, no Exxon Mobile. Stupid list.

[NutmegYankee]

59. Good grief. It's based on customer ratings.

People rarely interact with oil companies. Same thing with Monsanto.

[lonestarnot]

61. "People rarely interact with oil companies. Same thing with Monsanto."

You're kidding me right?

[NutmegYankee]

63. No. You buy with a Gas Station, not the oil company itself.

And as much as the price can annoy, the sales and service are straight forward. Cable and electricity can have high prices, but also bad customer service, horrible billing, and poor reliability.

As for Monsanto - you don't really buy from them. You buy their products from stores, and those stores are what takes the heat. Monsanto is evil, but it does so in the shadows.

[lonestarnot]

67. Well I say we interact with the consequences they produce to environment daily. Very personal and

up close interaction regardless of middlemen. Corporations are not people.

[NutmegYankee]

69. Obviously you missed the concept of customer satisfaction surveys. nt

[Tikki]

50. Add wal*mart and GE to that list...

Tikki

[Firebrand Gary]

51. *This study has been conducted by the US Chamber of Commerce...

[Control-Z]

53. Where's Sprint

and AT&T?

Bank of America and Facebook need to go directly to the top.

[bluedigger]

55. I'm surprised the cell phone companies skated.

They must be 16-20.

Other than that the list makes sense. It's consumer centric, which is why you don't see a lot of obvious candidates on it. People get pissed at the people they get billed by. In the same vein, population density gives an East Coast bias to utilities like Long Island Power Authority.

[NutmegYankee]

56. It's also a yearly ranking. 2011 pissed off a lot of Eastern electric customers.

Hurricane Irene had degraded to a tropical storm when it hit me in SE Conn, yet I still lost power for 7 days. For 6 of those days I never saw a CL&P truck. (CL&P, Connecticut Light & Power, is a Northeast Utilities company)
It was so bad that entire towns were 100% in the dark for days. Meanwhile the municipal utilities were up and running in a day. It wouldn't have pissed us off as much IF we had not paying the HIGHEST electrical rate in the CONUS. But we are...

And don't get me started on the Oct snow storm...

[bluedigger]

58. Good insight.

A localized disturbance like that would definitely sway opinion. Now the companies that show up year after year, they really suck.

[NutmegYankee]

60. As a good example, PEPCO (Potomac Electric Power Co.) ranked worst in 2009.

Washington Post analysis: Why Pepco can't keep the lights on

In high-powered Washington, one of the world's most wired and connected metro areas, the region's leading electric company has trouble just keeping the lights on.

Pepco delivers power to 778,000 customers in the District and neighboring parts of Maryland, including some of the most affluent communities and most important institutions in the nation. But in reliability studies, the company ranks near the bottom in keeping the power on and bringing it back once it goes out, an analysis by The Washington Post has found.

In fact, the average Pepco customer experienced 70 percent more outages than customers of other big city utilities that took part in one 2009 survey. And the lights stayed out more than twice as long.
More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/04/AR2010120403887.html?hpid=dynamiclead&sid=ST2010120403965


As a note, the company has worked to rapidly improve its reliability and as a result its customer rankings have climbed quite a bit since '09.

[Jennicut]

65. Yeah, they did a poor job.

My husband is a Yankee Gas guy and he was directed to sit by a downed power line in Woodbury for hours. This is near Quassy. There was no one around. There was a lot of bad communication and lack of organization. The NU boss lost his job for good reason. I worry about how NU is run, it is being run into the ground.

[NutmegYankee]

66. And It's sad that there are so many companies under the NU umbrella.

I am absolutely pleased with Yankee Gas.

[Jennicut]

64. Northeast Utilities...ouch. My husband works under them, for Yankee Gas.

To be honest, they are complete morons and the way they ran the power outages during last October (there was a winter storm in Connecticut) was really poor. There was confusion for the workers themselves over where they needed to be.