Online customers search excellence

What the Customer Focus Study Reviewed

The study consisted of visiting a retailer’s website and answering a series of Yes/No questions about the availability of 69 different factors that reflect a focus on customer experience. These factors were weighted based on our 10 years of optimizing retail website experiences and totaled to arrive at an eventual score for each site. The features we asked our shoppers and analysts to address include:

• Quality and detail of images
• Product copy description answering the shopper’s implicit questions
• Whether the retailer offers customer reviews
• How the retailer met the shopper’s gift buying needs
• Ease and simplicity of checkout
• Retailer’s ability to address the shopper’s concerns
• Ease and clarity of retailer return policies
• Providing of shipping and tax totals early in the checkout process
• Offering multiple payment options
• Offering estimated delivery times and showing in-stock availability for items
• Offering in-store pick-up where physical stores exist

We specifically asked the mystery shoppers to ignore:

• price points
• the ease in locating the products;
• the efficacy of the brand in conveying confidence;
• the impact of overall design on credibility and sales;
• the entire customer experience from search to purchase fulfillment

Rather than evaluating the entire customer experience, this study provides a benchmark for retail sites based on more objective criteria. Therefore, our 2007 Retail Customer Experience Study provides a thumbnail view of how businesses speak to the needs of their customers. There’s much work still to be done and plenty of opportunity for improvement. The top-rated site in this study scored only 67 out of a possible 100. Even the top-rated company has plenty of room to grow before it has thoroughly delighted its customers and improved its bottom line. Given the results of our study, Future Now further believes that companies which lavish attention on improving customer focus will reap more sales and experience superior customer-retention rates in the long term .

The Results: 2007 Online Retail Study for Customer Focused Excellence Congratulations to the top fifteen retailers for their efforts at providing visitors a customer-centric experience. The Overall Leaders:
SmartBargains.com 67
BestBuy.com 63
Compactappliance.com 63
BlueNile 63
EasternMountainSport 63
BackCountry.com 63
TigerDirect.com 63
CDUniverse.com 63
Ebags.com 63
Staples.com 63
AmericanMusical.com 62
Landsend.com 62
Crutchfield.com 62
Walmart.com 62
Walgreens.com 62

*Moved from 11th to 2nd since launching customer-generated reviews. Average score for all retailers = 43 (± 11)

The Leaders by Category: Apparel / Fashion: eBags.com, Landsend.com, Lids.com, Bluefly.com, LLBean.com Electronics: BestBuy.com,TigerDirect.com, Crutchfield.com Food: SurLaTable.com, Cooking.com, Berries.com Jewelry: BlueNile.com, Ice.com, Diamond.com Children / Toys: OneStepAhead.com, KBToys.com, BabyAge.com Housewares / Kitchen: CompactAppliance.com, BedBathandBeyond.com,SurLaTable.com Office: Staples.com, OfficeDepot.com, OfficeMax.com Mass Merchants: SmartBargains.com, Walmart.com, Target.com

Selected highlights learned from the study: * 58% offer gift certificates.* 24% do not allow customers to enlarge the product image.* 37% offer multiple image views of products.* 33% offer customer reviews.* 38% of sites have difficult to read fonts. (This is especially telling considering that, this year, our average age of reviewer was younger than ever before. Only 14% allow customers to change the default font size while viewing their website.)* 43% offer free shipping.* 61% do not offer any information on the product page regarding in-stock availability* 52% of retailers have physical stores; only 10% of all retailers offer in-store pickup of orders.* 74% offer estimated delivery times.* 42% provide shipping cost early in the checkout process. 35% have a checkout process with more than 4 steps.* (Only) 58% correctly answer an e-mail question within 24 hours.* 20% offer pay-by-check, 10% offer Google Checkout, 20% accept PayPal and 18% offer Bill Me Later.

This study reflects significant factors that customers have come to expect. Having worked with online retailers for the past decade to observe how customers buy at retail websites, Future Now knows that customers notice the little things. In the long run, customers vote with their dollars for companies that have an intense focus on satisfying their needs.