Debt Free

First of all, a hearty “Thank You” to all of you who visit and support my blog “Debt Free”. In the last 16 months since I started, I’ve been extremely gratified and thankful to have received so much support from readers and visitors. On to more stuff…..

It’s time for the second annual Debt Free Customer Satisfaction Roundup, with some results from various customer satisfaction surveys from around the globe. After all, if you’re spending your hard earned money, you should be happy with the results.

Hey, maybe Tiger would say nice things about Buicks even if he didn’t have that hefty endorsement contract. In the JD Power vehicle dependability survey released today, another vehicle brand tied Lexus for the highest dependability score. It’s the first time in a dozen years that feat’s been accomplished, and it was by Buick, no less! Way to go General! Maybe Lutz is really kickin’ some tail over there after all.

In another GM luxury nameplate coup, the number 3 ranking on the survey, immediately behind Buick, was Cadillac. If you want to drive an import, but don’t want to spring for a Lexus, you can pick up a ride from their parent company, Toyota, who finished 4^th.  Honda rounded out the top five in vehicle dependability, according to the JD Power study. Although the study was conducted through this year, it was actually taken on model year 2004 vehicles, so if you’re buying used, you can let that be your guide.

In the 2007 JD Power survey for initial quality, which measures reported defects in the first 90 days of new vehicle ownership, Lexus was again at the top of the heap, but was actually edged out by German uber-performance nameplate Porsche. At least it appears you do get what you pay for with these brands, but pay you will. Lincoln moved up 9 places from 2006 to finish in the number 3 spot in the 2007 initial quality survey.

What if you’d rather fly than drive? You should probably head over to the boys in blue. Jet Blue, that is. They aced all 8 categories of the 2007 JD Power airline customer satisfaction survey to finish a resounding first. Hopefully that will help them overcome some of the problems they’ve faced in the last few years. They seem to be making customers happy, in any case. Number two position in the budget airline category was occupied by perennial favorite Southwest Airlines. According to the 2007 University of Michigan customer satisfaction index, the airline industry as a whole has a score of 63.

63 may not sound too great. If you are a cable or satellite TV provider however, you’d do well to reach even that mediocre mark. As an industry, the folks that bring you your in house entertainment scored a less than stellar 61 points. Ouch! Even the Internal Revenue Service managed to bring home a score of 65 in the index.

When you get there, you’ll probably need someplace to stay. If that hideaway at your brother’s doesn’t sound too inviting, maybe you could check in to a room at Microtel Inns and Suites, who again finished with the highest customer satisfaction rating in the economy / budget category. If you were thinking you’d rather crash in a place that befitted your esteemed station in life, maybe the Ritz-Carlton would be more to your liking, and to make it even better, they finished at the top of the luxury hotel class for 2007.

Since this is a personal finance blog, after all, there’s a better than even chance some of you will be banking online. In that case, you’ll be well served by Wachovia, who, according to the latest comScore customer satisfaction survey, topped all others for online banking customer satisfaction for the 3^rd year in a row. To ensure your family won’t have to shoulder those mortgage and car payments when you’re gone, you’d do well to visit Met Life. The 2007 University of Michigan customer satisfaction survey touts them as the life insurance provider that’ll engender the warm and fuzzies better than any other.

If all that car shopping, traveling and banking has you feeling a bit famished, the University of Michigan’s customer satisfaction survey for 2007 picks Publix as the supermarket to swing by for something to eat. They led all supermarkets in the survey, sliding past Safeway, and soundly trouncing last place finisher Wal-Mart, although Wal-Mart’s Sam’s Club subsidiary did very well in customer satisfaction scoring.

If you’d rather do your shopping online, Barnes and Noble and, no surprise, Amazon.com, led all others. As an aside, Amazon would have made you pretty happy as an investor too. Their stock has posted impressive gains this year, going from under $40 a share in March, to $74.11 now. Over the last 5 years Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) has given investors quite a ride. The period has taken the stock from around $15 to where it sits today. The 5 years has been marked by two nice rallys, one from late 2001 to late 2003 where the stock climbed from the mid $14’s to about $60 a share. It then took it’s sweet time to give about half those gains back. About a year ago, it started another impressive rise, going from $30 to almost $80 earlier this week, before giving back about $6 a share in the last 2 days.

If all this has you starved, but your refrigerator’s looking pretty barren, swing through your local Wendy’s drive through for some heart stoppers on the way to stock it up at Publix. Wendy’s (78 points) far outpaced number 2 and 3 finishers BK (69) and MickyD’s (64) in the U of M report. Wendy’s also received top honors for “best burger” in the most recent Zagat survey of quick service restaurants.

Thanks, and have a great, “Debt Free” weekend.