Managers and business owners are constantly being harangued to adopt “best practices” and emulate the Warren Buffetts and Steve Jobs of this world. But maybe it’s time to reverse this trend and learn from the biggest losers.

According to the recently released 2012 American Customer Satisfaction Index, service industries—especially airlines, utilities and banks—generated the worst consumer satisfaction scores, mainly because of limited competition and the difficulty of interacting with customers.

Here are the top 13 most disliked companies:

1. Long Island Power Authority. Gripes: Spurred by losses from last August’s Hurricane Irene, complaints include rate hikes and overbilling mistakes.

2. Northeast Utilities. Gripes: After two major storms caused massive power outages last year, hundreds of thousands of customers were left in the dark without heat for up to 2 weeks.

3. Charter Communications. Gripes: Poor customer service and unfair billing practices.

4. Comcast. Gripes: Early withdrawals, faulty equipment and unprofessional service technicians.

5. United Airlines. Gripes: A technical glitch following last year’s merger with Continental caused widespread flight delays; complaints include poor customer service, cancellations and lost baggage.

6. Time Warner. Gripes: Slow Internet speeds, cable outages, “disastrous” customer service and high rates.

7. Cox Communications. Gripes: Higher rates and fees.

8. American Airlines. Gripes: Failing to keep customers informed, leaving them on hold for an average of 90 minutes, and failing to respond to questions on Twitter; “does a worse job of pleasing passengers than small, low-cost airlines such as Spirit or Frontier.”

9. US Airways. Gripes: Inaccurate billing, failing to notify passengers of flight delays, and “terrible” service.

10. Delta. Gripes: Most complaints involve customer-service reps not responding in a professional manner.

11. CenturyLink. Gripes: Billing issues and customer reps not being knowledgeable or helpful.

12. Facebook. Gripes: Lack of privacy and child safety.

13. Bank of America. Gripes: Most complaints arise from the mortgage division—although the bank’s plan to charge a $5 debit fee was discontinued after 2 months following public outrage.

See a pattern in what they’re doing wrong? Here’s what I spot:

Communication breakdown. If you’ve ever been on the other end of a call to AT&T (why didn’t they make the list?), you know firsthand how frustrating it is to try and communicate with a monolithic business. Voice-mail hell, unresponsive CSRs and setting up public Website forums only to ignore the comments they generate are perfect ways to anger, and ultimately lose, your customers.
Size doesn’t matter. In fact, if this study is any indication, the bigger the company, the worse the service. This gives the Spirit and Frontiers of the world a nice advantage, so if you’re small and able to provide personal attention and service, don’t hesitate to use that edge.
The blind leading the blind. Customer-service reps and other public-facing employees just don’t know their jobs at these companies. It’s a real lesson to make sure your people are fully trained and prepped to handle any customer situation.
They make a bad situation worse. Whether people are suffering in the wake of a major catastrophe or just upset about a much smaller loss, stonewalling them will lose you a customer—and you’ll feel their ire through bad word of mouth.
No news is bad news. Like those airline travelers stuck on the tarmac for hours wondering what the hell is going on, non-communication in any service industry is a bad idea. Note that a lot of these complaints simply involve not telling the customer the reasons behind the delay, billing increase or contract changes.

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Learning from the &lsquo;Biggest Losers&rsquo;

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