America’s Worst Customer Service According to Trustpilot Reviews – USPS Scores 1 out of 5 as New Study Ranks the Country’s Worst Industries

Photo by Element5 Digital

Article courtesy of Wing Assistant.

• Shipping and delivery has the worst average customer service rating of any major US industry at 1.11 out of 5 on Trustpilot, with USPS recording a flat 1.00 across its reviews.
• Eight of the ten industries analysed did not reply to a single negative review on the platform.
• DoorDash (1.02), American Airlines (1.05) and Spirit Airlines (1.07) join USPS among the five worst-rated individual companies for customer service.

A flat 1 out of 5 for customer service on Trustpilot is what the United States Postal Service managed, and that score dragged the shipping and delivery sector to the bottom of a new industry ranking.

The study, carried out by Wing Assistant, looked at 8,728 Trustpilot reviews across 45 companies in ten major US industries, and found that 2,587 were customer service-related. Reviews were filtered for keywords like customer service, support team, call center and chat support.

The ten industries ranked from worst to best for customer service

Shipping and delivery came bottom with a customer service score of 1.11 out of 5 and an overall TrustScore of 1.20. USPS recorded a flat 1.00, the lowest of any company analysed. UPS came in at 1.09, DHL at 1.11 and FedEx at 1.24. Unhelpful or incompetent support was the most common complaint; not one of the four firms bothered replying to a single negative review.

Food delivery fared barely better at 1.15, but the gulf between that figure and the sector’s overall TrustScore of 1.78 was the widest of any industry in the study; customer support, it seems, is where these companies fall apart. DoorDash scored 1.02, making it the second worst-rated company overall. Uber Eats and Instacart both came in at 1.09 and Grubhub at 1.38.

Banking and finance scored 1.21 for customer service and 1.20 overall, the only industry in the study where both figures sat that close together. Citibank (1.11), Chase (1.18), Capital One (1.19) and Wells Fargo (1.20) were bunched tightly together. Rude or unprofessional staff was the most common complaint.

The airline sector scored 1.30 for customer service (overall TrustScore: 1.47). American Airlines came in at 1.05 and Spirit Airlines at 1.07, making them the third and fourth worst individual companies in the study. Southwest (1.76) and Delta (1.65) fared considerably better than their budget rivals.

For retail and e-commerce, the customer service average came in at 1.37 (overall TrustScore: 1.54). eBay scored lowest of the five retailers at 1.28, while Best Buy was close behind at 1.30. Amazon managed 1.56, which made it the best of a bad bunch among the five retailers studied. Not one of them replied to negative reviews.

Healthcare,

where Cigna scored 1.15 and Anthem (Elevance) 1.75, came in at 1.39 for customer service against an overall TrustScore of 1.30. Long wait or hold times was the dominant complaint rather than staff behaviour. This was also one of only two industries where companies actually replied to negative reviews; the sector managed a 23.7 per cent response rate.

Insurance came in at 1.41 (overall TrustScore: 1.33) and was the only other industry to post any reply rate, at 24.9 per cent. Allstate scored lowest at 1.27 and State Farm topped the sector at 1.64.

Streaming and tech came eighth at 1.42 for customer service (overall TrustScore: 1.50), with Disney+ bottom of the pile at 1.15 and Netflix highest at 1.77. Rude or unprofessional staff was again the top complaint, which seems odd for a sector where nearly all contact is through a screen.

Telecommunications scored 1.53 for customer service (overall TrustScore: 1.72). AT&T (1.11) and Xfinity (1.19) were the worst in the sector, but Spectrum told a different story; its 2.85 was the highest individual customer service score of any company in the study.

Car rental and travel was the least badly rated industry at 1.54 (overall TrustScore: 1.98), though that is hardly something to celebrate. Marriott (1.30) and Hertz (1.34) scored lowest, while Enterprise stood out at 2.05, one of just two companies in the study to clear the 2-out-of-5 mark.

The five worst-rated individual companies for customer service were USPS (1.00), DoorDash (1.02), American Airlines (1.05), Spirit Airlines (1.07), and UPS, Uber Eats and Instacart (tied at 1.09)

Roland Polzin, founder of Wing Assistant, said: “Not a single industry in the study managed an average customer service score above 2 out of 5. Eight out of ten did not bother replying to a single negative review. If the bare minimum for decent service is acknowledging when something goes wrong, most of these companies have not cleared it.”

“The numbers speak for themselves: healthcare and insurance, the only sectors that bothered replying to negative reviews (and two of the most heavily regulated industries in the country), managed a combined average of roughly 25% between them. The other eight posted a reply rate of zero,” he added. “This could be an indication that when there is no regulatory pressure to engage, most companies simply do not bother.”

Methodology

• Wing Assistant analyzed 8,728 publicly available Trustpilot reviews (2,587 of which were customer service-related) for 45 companies across ten US industries.
• Reviews were filtered by keywords (such as customer service, support team, call center, and chat support), complaints sorted into five types (rude or unprofessional staff, unhelpful or incompetent, unreachable or no response, transferred or bounced around, and automated or no human contact), and companies ranked by Trustpilot TrustScore (1 to 5), reply rate and response time.