Try Harder Retailers Says UK Online Shopping Report
November 24th, 2006 by pamela
Research into the top 28 online retailers in the UK has found room for improvement according to Marketing Assistance and Blast Radius.
Looking at the online experience from first visits to refunds, the report found that differences in the way retailers and consumers think was damaging customer experience, leaving much room for improvement.
Lee Feldman, Chief Creative Officer at Blast Radius said that the problems were due to customers and retailers holding differing ideas of what is important;
“The study results show that investment by online retailers tends to focus on what they care about most, securing the sale. This attention is at odds with what the customers focus on, what happens after they have made a purchase.”
“This ’service disconnect’ is critical and reveals a short sighted view of the customer based on immediate revenue collection where real value is gained from long–term relationships.”
Looking at the top retailers, Marketing Assistance found that delivery, returns and branding were all major issues for customers, with the company’s mystery shoppers often failing to receive purchases, or have them delivered at the right time. Returns policies were found to be inadequate, or impossible to find and in one case a customer was charged £30 by Apple to return an unwanted product. Hardly the stuff of good customer satisfaction.
Feldman called the results “worrying”, saying that UK retailers had to try harder.
It’s clear that while many problems exist, there are opportunities available for companies who actively listen to consumers and deliver what they want. Instead of focusing on the conversion, online shopping sites clearly need to take customer experience a lot more seriously, and that can only benefit both parties.
Some of the information contained in the report could be very useful when it comes to ensuring that clients are considering the full spectrum of an online shopping experience – for example some complained regarded the packaging in which purchases were delivered and did not enhance the shopping experience. Lack of integration between online and offline channels also drew criticism, in some cases highlighting the difference in return policies for high street and online purchases.
The top 10 online retailers named by the report are:
1. Amazon UK
2. Dell EMEA
3. Apple Computer UK
4. Next
5. Comet
6. Tesco/ QVC UK
7. Currys/ Littlewoods
8. ASOS
9. John Lewis
10. Hewlett–Packard/ Marks and Spencer
Download a copy of the UK’s Best Online Shopping Experiences 2006 report here.
Posted in Stats & Research |
November 27th, 2006 at 11:24 am
Amazon received top spot mainly for reviews and the amount of customer interaction, it only proves importance of valuable and real content that helps to improve both rankings and customer experience.
November 27th, 2006 at 11:30 am
Interesting slant to this article - despite Apple being singled out as an example of poor customer service, they are still rated third overall.
This either indicates an overall unacceptable level of customer satisfaction across the board, or that, despite the incident highlighted, their service was good. Either way, there are lessons in this report for all retail clients, particularly with the detail in the criteria used to assess at the end.