Which Retailers Satisfied Their Customers This Holiday Season?

Well Christmas has come and gone and two questions come to mind.

If you have young kids - how do you get all those toys put together?

And for everyone else, what retailers lead the way in satisfying their customers?

Let's address the second question today (you are on your own for the first one).

This year we measured satisfaction with the top 40 online retailers in the U.S. (get the full report here)

 
Overall, satisfaction was a 74 (on a 100 point scale) down 1 point from the 2006 holiday season.  The downward movement is a bit of a concern, but considering the very tough economic climate this holiday season and the disappointing retail sales, not too bad.  Netflix led all retailers with an impressive score of 86 (even with their score last year), followed by Amazon at 82 (down 2 points from last year).  QVC and L.L. Bean rounded out the top performers with scores of 80.

So who cares if customers are satisfied?  Well, not only consumers, but retailers should care too!  Satisfied customers become long term and loyal customers.  Dissatisfied customers become your competitor's customers. 

Comparing the top performers (scores of 80 and higher) to the bottom performers (scores of 70 and lower) we see that the result of higher satisfaction leads to significantly higher  purchase intent (33%), loyalty (23%), and word of mouth recommendations (26%).  That is the payback for satisfying your customers. 

And this year we also measured the top 30 U.K. online retailers.  This is our first time measuring the U.K. group.  Some of retailers performance was brilliant!  You can get the full report here.