NPS Prism Releases Latest U.S. Benchmarks Report

NPS Prism is thrilled to release our latest US Benchmarks Report, offering CX, product, and business leaders a valuable way to measure customer sentiment, track changes in customer experience over time, and identify areas of opportunity for 2025 and beyond.

This bi-annual US benchmarks report update sheds light on how leading businesses are prioritizing and enhancing the customer experience, and follows our  previous report updates from 2022 and Winter 2023. 

“Our latest findings reveal what it takes to win in CX in 2025 - it’s about recognizing that even the most routine interactions are opportunities. Our latest benchmark report speaks to how the top players are winning, and which strategies are driving their success.”

Anna Krementz, VP of Client Engagement, NPS Prism

Over 1,000 companies and over 10 industries are represented, including Airlines, Automotive, Consumer Banking, Convenience Retail, Grocery, Home Improvement, Insurance, Pharmacy, Telecom, Utilities, and Video Streaming.

As a customer experience (CX), marketing, or business unit leader, you can use the NPS Prism Benchmarks Report to measure customer sentiment and loyalty in your industry, build better customer relationships, and drive business growth.

  

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NPS Prism 2024 U.S. Cross Industry Leaderboard

United States NPS average by industry (rolling four quarters, Q1 2024 - Q4 2024)

The lines in our Industry Leaderboard represent the range of average NPS scores for Q1 2024 – Q4 2024, and multiple company logos in the same column indicate a tie. NPS Prism collects new survey data every 90 days, reflecting shifts in customer expectations within the industry.

Two New Leaders Revealed Among Other Valuable Insights

This report summarizes each industry's key customer sentiment metrics over Q1-Q4 of 2024, including relationship NPS (rNPS), which captures the overall customer sentiment about a particular brand, and/or product NPS (pNPS), which measures customer satisfaction at the product level.

This year’s report shows leader performance staying largely consistent to prior years. Only two industries, Payments  and Convenience, experienced a change in leader, and performance of prior leaders remained strong in both.  Paypal replaced Afterpay as the Payments industry leader and Wawa become the conventional (non-Amazon) Convenience leader. 

The findings demonstrated the importance of prioritizing routine, high incidence customer interactions when making CX improvements. rNPS leaders tend to win most often in these routine episodes, while laggards underperform. As these interactions touch a large portion of the customer base most often, improving these episodes tend to result in fastest brand-level improvements.  

US Banking Leaders Deliver Superior Digital Experiences Across Products

As banks continue to invest in digital self-service options with high consumer demand, the discrepancy in how they push, use, and adopt these digital channels and episodes is where leaders outperform the rest of the players.

USAA and Navy Federal, who lead in top-line NPS, also lead in online and in-app digital metrics across most everyday banking interactions, where incidence rates are high and impactful.

Customers want all their digital banking interactions to be fast and easy, but there are product-level nuances to the key drivers of NPS for digital episodes.

Checking & savings customers are moving from ATM and branch visits to online and mobile app channels for interactions like sending money. Critical factors driving NPS include speed of the transfer, confirmation that the money was sent, and communicating if there is a hold.

For credit card customers, online and mobile app users are switching over most frequently from call centers to review transactions. They’re concerned with understanding spend insight, and how quickly payments post on transactions. 

These findings underscore that in addition to continuing to invest in more digital options, U.S. banks must pay close attention to how they are being implemented at a product level.

For U.S. Pharmacies, Prescription Fulfillment Stands out As a Critical Episode

As their larger competitors faced ongoing financial and CX challenges last year, independent pharmacies continued to lead the industry, primarily thanks to strong eNPS scores for prescription fulfillment. 

From order placement to prescription collection, independent pharmacies met consumers high expectations for this routine episode, avoiding errors and long wait times, offering flexible fulfilment options, and demonstrating a strong knowledge of their customers’ health needs.

2024 also saw grocery stores surpass pharmacy specialists, with chains including Kroger and Publix meeting key customer needs such as being in a convenient location, having a wide range of prescriptions available, and having low out-of-pocket costs.

With strong execution in these critical attributes and episodes, independent pharmacies and grocery stores are well poised to continue their success relative to major U.S. pharmacies.

Location and In-Store Experience Prove Vital for Convenience Stores

Amazon and Wawa maintained their position as industry leaders for convenience stores, outperforming retail pharmacies in low prices, best value for money, and the ability to get in and out quickly. While convenient location is still the most important key purchase criteria to customers, these KPCs also were important determinants of rNPS.

A key routine episode and strong indicator of rNPS for the industry is in-store browsing, an area where Wawa shined. They held a large lead in the promoter-creating “Ordering hot food and beverage” episode, as well as multiple others.

Despite poor in-store performance, Walmart performs relatively well for online episodes, especially promoter-creating episode such as ‘browse and select online’, ‘check out online’, ‘pick up online order’, and ‘receive online order at home’

While location remains critical, data reinforces that convenience stores and retail pharmacies who pay close attention to in-store and online episodes can continue to drive positive customer sentiment in 2025.

Amazon Gains Ground in U.S. Home Improvement Industry with Simplified Shopping Experience

While specialist stores led the market, differentiated by convenient store locations, array of items in-stock, and helpfulness of in-store staff in offering advice, the gap between home improvement superstores and Amazon has closed steadily.

Along with a growing product selection and availability, Amazon is winning shoppers over via its perceived value, rapid delivery times, and simplicity of its shopping experience. 

They were the standout leaders for routine industry episodes including “Compare item(s)”, “Select and review item(s)”, and “Check out”. Their fully digital experience also outperformed the blended experience offered by specialist stores.

To remain competitive in 2025, home improvement players will want to keep a close eye on these key CX wins from Amazon and specialist stores. 

U.S. Telecom Providers Remain Consistent in rNPS and Routine Episode Performance

2024 saw industry leaders in B2C Cellular, Internet, Pay TV, Video, and OTT maintain their rNPS standings and differentiate themselves in routine episode performance.

Mobile virtual networks (MVNOs) including Mint Mobile, Consumer Cellular, and Visible continue to lead the B2C cellular market with the simplicity and value they offer. While legacy carriers focus on incentivizing customers through perks like device upgrades, MVNOs ensure smooth, affordable service, with minimal extras. 

T-Mobile continues to be the leader for Internet, with most customers being extremely satisfied with its cost, rewards, reliability, speed, and customer service For Pay TV, Verizon customers continue to be the most satisfied with the provider’s technology, quality, and content.

In 2024, routine episodes proved critical to CX for video and streaming providers, as leaders performed at the top of the industry in routine episodes and all episodes. Laggards perform at the bottom of the industry across most episodes, including routine episodes. 

YouTube TV continues to lead across all video providers, with customers extremely satisfied with its performance across all interactions, as well as its content, navigation, personalization, and the speed at which network and technical issues are resolved.

In OTT, Netflix continues to lead. Across all interactions, eNPS for human and digital channels exceeded the industry average by a large margin. Customer satisfaction with content, navigation, and personalization attributes also exceeded the industry average.

Especially for industries where routine episodes are particularly high incidence, like video and streaming, close attention should be paid to customer satisfaction with these interactions.

For U.S. Airlines, Both Digital and Human Experiences Differentiate Leaders

In 2024, JetBlue, Alaska, Southwest, and Delta were statistically tied as the industry leaders in relationship NPS
JetBlue and Southwest lead the peer set for routine, high-incidence episodes such as checking in for a flight or collecting baggage.

They did so by providing a fast, seamless digital experience, including timely mobile app notifications, as well as an enhanced human experience, as evidenced by key metrics such as representative knowledge and their ability to offer useful recommendations.

Top airlines also perform well on other critical components of the trip experience – including key aircraft dimensions (e.g. modernity and cleanliness) and personnel / flight crew attributes like attentiveness and friendliness which undergird routine journeys such as check-in.

These findings point to the importance of a strong digital infrastructure and skilled service representatives across both routine episodes (like check-in) as well as highly emotive journeys (like flight delays and cancellations), enabling customers to complete these experiences quickly and seamlessly. 

Proper Channel Mix and a Human Touch Helps Specialist Financial Advisors Outperform

Specialist financial advisors lead the wealth management industry, with customers finding the human presence they offer, especially during key trading experiences, preferable to the increasingly digital experiences offered by fintech or bank competitors.

Within routine episodes like portfolio management, trade execution, and updating financial plans, specialist advisors such as Edward Jones best serve the needs of clientele with a mix of channels. Crucially – these episode leaders also maintain a strong digital presence in addition to their human channels, ensuring customers have choices.

Customers of these leading performers were ~10% less likely than the industry average to be considering switching service provider in the next 12 months. They also held a leading share of customer liquid investable assets on platform, demonstrating the powerful customer loyalty created by their human-focused but still digital-friendly approach.

U.S. Grocery: In-Store Experiences and Price Value Remain Strong Determinants of Customer Satisfaction

2024 data demonstrates that despite adoption of online shopping and delivery apps, offering a good in-store experience remains key to strong customer advocacy.

H-E-B’s lead in the U.S. grocery market is underpinned by best-in-class in-store experience, with customers >10% more likely than the industry average to find staff easily available and helpful, the layout easy to navigate, and items easy to find.

The U.S. grocery customer base also remains very price conscious, following successive years of inflation shaping attitudes towards retailers. Industry leaders differentiate within key drivers of store selection such as low everyday prices, offering good value, strong sales/promotions, and a strong private label offering.

U.S. grocers can maintain their lead or grow their competitive advantage in 2025 by focusing in on the in-store experience and catering to cost-conscious shoppers who still wish to make high quality purchases.

Digital Platforms and Contact Centers Critical to Insurance Provider Success in CX

As the leader among insurance providers, with consistently strong performance from policy selection to claim submission, USAA demonstrates the value of strong digital platforms and contact center satisfaction.

Customers using USAA’s digital platforms have leading satisfaction with the range of features available and ease of platform navigation, resulting in >90% of customers being able to complete their objective without any issues, and strong digital adoption throughout the customer journey.

Despite average performance on operational KPIs like hold rates and wait times, USAA maintains leading contact center satisfaction with 5-10% better than average perceived rep empathy, knowledge, and expectation setting.

Their performance provides a valuable case study in which channels and interactions move the needle in customer experience for insurance providers.

Service Episodes an Opportunity for Growth for U.S. Auto Companies

Unlike other industries, the most frequent episode in the U.S. auto instrument, “completed service” is highly emotive and a detractor creator. OEM dealerships face different shares of routine (e.g., oil change, tire rotation) and non-routine service (e.g., repairs, recalls), with routine typically providing a better experience by ~20pts.

Leaders such as Lexus outperform the industry by providing top-notch pre-service experiences and minimizing the experience gap between routine and non-routine services.

By prioritizing transparent communications around service options and pricing, as well as offering quick scheduling, prompt follow-ups, and detailed service explanations, dealerships can follow Lexus’s lead in driving positive customer experiences.

USAA Leads in Routine Episode Performance and Call Center Service

USAA also led customer experience in 2024 for life insurance providers, driven by strong performance among routine episodes like, ‘Compared options and chose product’, ‘Paid my bill’, ‘Managed my account information’, ‘Replaced or added beneficiaries’, and ‘checked my balance or made changes to my portfolio’

The company saw the highest digital mix across routine episodes at an average 62%, well ahead of industry’s average 45%. USAA also leads in aggregate digital eNPS across routine Life episodes, making digital channels a key area of differentiation for them.

In addition to digital channels, human experiences were also critical to USAA’s success—they held a co-leadership position among call center rep experiences and were ahead of industry averages for call center rep attribute performance. Key differentiators included the ability of reps to effectively tailoring their responses to help the nuances of customers’ situations and reps ability to ‘make it right’ when customers had a problem or issue, where USAA is 10% ahead of industry average.

Like other industries, life insurance providers can make CX improvements by honing in on both digital and human channels for routine episodes.

Human Channels Stand Out for U.S. Annuities Where Routine Episodes are Few

With annuities being a very low digitally penetrated industry (on average, 33% digital mix across episodes) human channel interactions are valuable. USAA leads in human channels experiences across all episodes. Particularly leading in the attribute that representative or agent ‘was responsive’.

However, digital channels still play a role in differentiating leaders. USAA is just 5 % pts ahead of industry’s average digital mix across all episodes, but those that leverage USAA’s digital channels have stronger experiences with them.

Unlike other instruments, U.S. Annuities only has one episode categorized as routine, ‘Started taking my annuity payouts’, and its incidence rate is quite low. For all episodes, USAA has the highest aggregate eNPS and sits 21 pts above the industry average, making them a valuable case study for other annuity providers.

Driving Customer Loyalty Through Global NPS Insights

NPS Prism can help you unlock the “why” behind episodes within your customer journey to focus on improving the areas that will drive the most satisfaction. With a breadth and depth of benchmarking data, companies can track
satisfaction across products, episodes, and channels to improve their scores over time. NPS Prism enables frequent check-ins on CX improvement initiatives to distill the noise and establish a clear baseline for competition.

Learn the reasons behind your scores, and how you can improve overall customer experience with a live demo of NPS Prism.

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See how your company– contact NPS Prism for a customized benchmarking consultation.

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