Customer satisfaction with online retailers on Cyber Monday matched last year with 73.1 on the American customer satisfaction Index’s (ACSI) 100-point scale, but overall satisfaction during the Thanksgiving holiday week and weekend was higher than in 2009, according to a new report from ForeSee Results.
The figures are a composite of more than 130 scores for individual retail websites, which ranged from 42 to 88. A score of 80 is generally considered the starting point for excellence. Forty of the 136 retail websites in the ForeSee Results benchmark (nearly one-third) qualify as “excellent.”
Among the retail websites included in the benchmark are Ace Hardware, Bass Pro, Belk, Cabelas, Chef’s Catalog, Chicos, DSW, Eddie Bauer, eBags, Gamefly, Godiva, Harry and David, Helzberg Diamonds, Home Depot, LEGO, Musicians Friend, Panasonic, Samsung, ShopNFL, Sears, Sephora, and Sony Style.
“The great news for the one-third of retailers that are doing so well is that satisfied online shoppers are not only more likely to buy online, they’re also 47% more likely to buy offline,” said Kevin Ertell, vice president of retail strategy at ForeSee Results.
"In a struggling economy, retailers providing a great customer experience have more to gain because they’ll be the best positioned to capture available market share when other retailers fail to meet customers’ increasingly high standards and expectations."
Other highlights of the report include:
*Online shoppers are more satisfied with prices this year than they were last year.
*On e-retail websites with superior satisfaction scores (over 80 on the study’s 100-point scale), customers report they are significantly more likely to purchase online and offline than are visitors to sites with subpar customer satisfaction (below 70).
*Online shoppers are more likely to purchase online this year than they were last year as a result of their website visit, but their likelihood to purchase offline after a website visit is on par with last year.
“Higher satisfaction has a proven link to higher revenues,” said Larry Freed, President and CEO of ForeSee Results.
“So while we’re always excited to see what’s already happened through the traffic and revenue numbers that come from Coremetrics, Nielsen, Hitwise, and Comscore, we’ve found retailer executives are also watching their own satisfaction scores quite closely this time of year to see what will happen next.”
