Fast Food Restaurants
Customer satisfaction benchmarks and strategic insights for fast food restaurants
Better understand key elements of the fast food experience to build customer loyalty.
FAST FOOD
RESTAURANTS
Ramped up spending, economic changes, and digital experiences are shaping how today’s consumers interact with fast food businesses. As the experts in science-based market research, discover how ACSI has been helping U.S. fast food companies accurately predict and improve customer satisfaction for several years.
At a glance:
Fast Food Restaurants
-
Inaugural year:
1994
-
Updated:
annually
-
Most recent data:
2021
-
Companies:
22 major chains, plus aggregate of smaller fast food outlets
Benchmarks by Industry
Customer Experience Benchmarks Year-Over-Year Industry Trends
| Benchmarks | 2020 | 2021 |
|---|---|---|
| Accuracy of food order | 85 | 84 |
| Quality of mobile app | 81 | 83 |
| Courtesy and helpfulness of staff | 83 | 82 |
| Food quality (taste, temperature, freshness of ingredients) | 83 | 82 |
| Reliability of mobile app (minimal down time, crashes, lags) | 81 | 82 |
| Restaurant layout and cleanliness | 83 | 82 |
| Beverage quality (taste, temperature) | 82 | 81 |
| Speed of check-out or delivery | 81 | 81 |
| Website satisfaction | 81 | 80 |
| Variety of food on menu (not including beverages) | 80 | 79 |
| Variety of beverages on menu | 79 | 78 |
*Industry averages are weighted by companies’ market shares.
Satisfaction Benchmarks by Company
Fast Food Restaurants
| Company | 2020 | 2021 | % Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fast Food Restaurants | 78 | 78 | 0.0% |
| Chick-fil-A | 84 | 83 | -1% |
| All Others | 80 | 80 | 0% |
| Domino's | 79 | 80 | 1% |
| KFC (Yum! Brands) | 79 | 79 | 0% |
| Starbucks | 78 | 79 | 1% |
| Five Guys | NM | 78 | NA |
| Panera Bread | 79 | 78 | -1% |
| Pizza Hut (Yum! Brands) | 77 | 78 | 1% |
| Arby's (Inspire Brands) | 79 | 77 | -3% |
| Chipotle Mexican Grill | 80 | 77 | -4% |
| Dunkin' (Inspire Brands) | 79 | 77 | -3% |
| Papa John's | 78 | 77 | -1% |
| Burger King (RBI) | 76 | 76 | 0% |
| Little Caesars | 76 | 76 | 0% |
| Panda Express | NM | 76 | NA |
| Subway | 79 | 75 | -5% |
| Dairy Queen | NM | 74 | NA |
| Taco Bell (Yum! Brands) | 74 | 74 | 0% |
| Jack in the Box | 73 | 73 | 0% |
| Popeyes (RBI) | 74 | 73 | -1% |
| Sonic (Inspire Brands) | 74 | 73 | -1% |
| Wendy's | 76 | 73 | -4% |
| McDonald's | 70 | 70 | 0% |
NM – Not measured NA – Not available