The AMERICAN CUSTOMER SATISFACTION INDEX has released their 2019-2020 Restaurant Report (based on surveys from April 2019 – March 2020), and LongHorn Steakhouse and Chick-Fil-A were both named the “Most Satisfying Restaurants” in their respective categories.
Every year, the AMERICAN CUSTOMER SATISFACTION INDEX surveys consumers about their overall experiences in various industries.
Chick-Fil-A has been at the top of the ACSI rankings for the past six years in the “Limited Service Restaurants” category (tie scores are listed alphabetically)
This year’s rankings in this category are:
- Chick-fil-A
- (Other, smaller fast food outlets)
- Chipotle
- Arby’s
- Domino’s
- Dunkin’
- KFC
- Panera
- Subway
- Papa John’s
- Starbucks
- Pizza Hut
- Burger King
- Little Caesars
- Wendy’s
- Popeyes
- Sonic
- Taco Bell
- Jack in the Box
- McDonald’s
Takeaways from this list are:
- Chick-fil-A has a significant lead over it’s competitors in the rankings
- McDonald’s really needs to step up their game, with a six point difference between them and Jack in the Box (and a 27 point deficit behind Chick-fil-A)
- Consumers want order accuracy above all other criteria. The other criteria that consumers ranked high are the courtesy/helpfulness of the staff, food quality, and cleanliness of the restaurant.
- Least important to consumers on the survey were the variety of food and beverage options available.
For full-service restaurants, the rankings are (again, tie rankings are listed alphabetically):
- LongHorn Steakhouse
- (Other, smaller restaurants)
- Texas Roadhouse
- Cracker Barrel
- Olive Garden
- Red Lobster
- Outback
- TGI Fridays
- Applebee’s
- Denny’s
- Red Robin
- Ruby Tuesday
- Chili’s
Notable takeaways from the full-service listings include:
- Chili’s ranking was even lower than the majority of the limited-service restaurants on that list.
- Survey suggests that diners have become unhappy with food quality compared to previous years
- Consumers highest criteria are accuracy of food order, food quality, and somehow — quality of the mobile app ranked higher than restaurant cleanliness. It’s interesting that consumers want more from their full-service restaurant mobile app experience than they expect for the fast-food oriented apps.
- Lowest on the consumer criteria list are the speed that the meal comes to the table, and satisfaction with the website.
Read more (including in-depth breakdowns of the data) from the ACSI report here: https://www.theacsi.org/news-and-resources/press-releases/press-2020/press-release-restaurants-2019-2020