Customer service and customer satisfaction are at the foundation of customer retention and customer loyalty. Unhappy customers go elsewhere. Happy customers may be customers for life. People usually are happy with Apple and Amazon products and services, which has helped them be among the largest and most successful companies in the world.

Customer satisfaction extends to industries. Those with tens of millions of customers and products that often have problems usually end up near the bottom among all industries. Cable services and airlines are cases in point.

The American Society for Quality (ASQ), a gold standard of customer satisfaction measurement, defines customer satisfaction as the measurement of how happy consumers are with a company’s products, services and capabilities. A simple definition, but it is hard to accomplish in a time when consumers are more likely to vent their frustration with goods and services directly to the company.

ASQ notes that polls, surveys and focus groups provide insight into what consumers want. Armed with that information, companies can tailor goods and services to “meet or exceed customer expectations.” Some manage to do just that.

Customer satisfaction is more than just building a good product. Companies must follow through on their promises to provide excellent and consistent service and product quality. Companies must ensure good service at each touchpoint in the customer cycle, from initial purchase to handling the inevitable (and hopefully few) complaints. After all, one bad experience or instance of poor product quality can turn off a customer to a company, or even an entire industry.

To identify America’s best industry for customer satisfaction, 24/7 Wall St. reviewed recent data from the American Customer Satisfaction Index. The ACSI model estimates customer satisfaction based on survey-measured inputs of customer expectations, perceptions of quality and perceptions of value and survey-measured outcomes of customer complaints and customer loyalty.

The most recent ACSI survey found the industries with the highest customer satisfaction scores were in the retail food industries. Full-service restaurants and food manufacturing each scored 80 out of 100. Breweries came in close third at 79 out of 100.

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