Based on findings from the Temkin Group — a customer experience research and consulting firm — the three car brands whose dealers offer the highest-rated customer experience are Toyota, Buick and Lexus, with Subaru not far behind.

These findings were just part of the 2014 Temkin Experience Ratings, an annual ranking of companies based on a consumer study for 10,000 participants covering 268 organizations across 19 industries, including the auto dealer business.

The study, which measures the quality of the customer experience, hones in on these three “dimensions”: functional (can you do what you want to do?), accessible (how easy is it to work with the company?), and emotional (how do you feel about the interactions?).

The three scores (functional, accessible and emotional) are averaged to calculate a company’s Temkin Experience Rating, the group explained.

So how did dealers of various brands shake out?

Toyota, Buick and Lexus dealers each earned average scores of 74 percent to lead the pack of auto dealer brands. This also placed the trio in a tie for 59th when looking at the scores of all 268 companies evaluated (auto dealer industry and otherwise).

Toyota has led the dealer rankings for two straight years, while this was the first time that Buick and Lexus have been evaluated. Closely following these three was Subaru at 73 percent. Hyundai was at 70 percent.

 “Toyota, Buick, and Lexus dealers are leading the industry-wide effort to become more customer-centric,” said Bruce Temkin, managing partner of Temkin Group.

Twelve of the remaining 15 auto dealer brand scores were between 61 percent and 68 scores, with three brands scoring between 50 percent and 57 percent.

Showing the most improvement were Hyundai (up 6 percentage points), BMW (up 5 points to 65 percent), Nissan (up 4 points to 63 percent), and Toyota (up 3 points).

In similar news, top annual deaelrship awards were shared with Auto Remarketing recently by Acura and Toyota, respectively.

Acura revealed its Dealership of Distinction honors for 2013 performances; that list can be found here.

Meanwhile, Toyota shared its President’s Award recipients. The complete list is here.