ForeSee Holiday Report: Supermarket Outshines Apple, Priceline.com Negotiates A Bad Score
ANN ARBOR (WWJ) -- Amazon.com and L.L. Bean set the bar for holiday customer satisfaction in numbers released Tuesday by the Ann Arbor customer experience analytics firm ForeSee.
Based on data gathered during 2013's holiday shopping season, the ForeSee Experience Index 2013 U.S. Retail Edition features company-level and channel-specific customer satisfaction analysis for the top 100 U.S. retailers.
The new data goes beyond previous years' ForeSee E-Retail Satisfaction Index (U.S. Holiday Edition) by adding store and contact center scores to web and mobile satisfaction scores.
Said Larry Freed, president and CEO of ForeSee: "The data shows that customer loyalty for retailers is on the decline, yet consumers are satisfied with the top retail brands and had the best experience with retailers who mastered the multichannel experience. While Amazon continues to reign supreme across multiple channels, several retailers have identified critical drivers for increased sales and have made great strides to improve the multichannel customer experience, setting themselves up for success into 2014."
Amazon and L.L.Bean tied for the highest company-level satisfaction, with 90 on the index's 100-point scale.
While this is the first time ForeSee has studied company-level satisfaction during the holidays, the L.L.Bean website has scored an 80 or above in Web satisfaction eight out of the nine years measured, and Amazon has topped the Web satisfaction list every year.
At the other end of the scale, Priceline.com came in with the lowest company-level satisfaction at 76, as well as one of the lowest Web satisfaction (75) and Mobile satisfaction (73) scores.
Also, Apple, which prides itself on stellar Apple Store customer experiences, lost to the supermarket chain Publix Super Markets in store satisfaction. Publix scored an 86, Apple stores an 83.
While Amazon led the pack for web satisfaction at 88, some retail sites such as vitacost.com (86), keurig.com (84) and llbean.com (84) are creeping closer. Basspro.com (83) and crateandbarrel.com (80) tied for the most improved sites with seven-point gains in customer satisfaction from last year.
In a category that saw satisfaction stagnate this year, Wal-Mart (80) was the only company to experience a significant increase of more than three points in mobile satisfaction, seeing a five-point improvement from 2012's score. Again, Amazon led the pack with a Mobile satisfaction score of 87.
In terms of contact centers, QVC (88) beat Amazon (85). Costco and O'Reilly Auto Parts tied Amazon in contact center satisfaction at 85.
The numbers also show declining customer loyalty to one store: Just 12 percent of customers surveyed said they only considered one company when making a purchase. Nearly half (49 percent) of people reported that the company they visited was one of several companies they considered equally when shopping.
ForeSee also said its surveys show that the most satisfied shoppers this holiday season were the ones that interacted with a retailer across multiple channels. The majority of customers (57 percent) were single-channel users with a satisfaction score of 82, and the remaining 43 percent who used two or more channels to engage with the company recorded a satisfaction score of 85.
The study is based on more than 67,600 surveys collected between Nov. 29 and Dec. 17 for the 100 biggest U.S. retailers as reported by the Fortune 500 and Internet Retailer's top 100 websites. Retailers listed in this report include Amazon, Dell, L.L.Bean, Apple, QVC, Keurig, Costco, Ralph Lauren, Victoria's Secret, Barnes & Noble, eBay, Groupon, Family Dollar, Best Buy, Toys R Us, Zulily and others.
More at www.foresee.com.
