ACSI E-Commerce Results

It’s that time of year again: time for the University of Michigan's American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) report on e-commerce. The e-commerce report includes the e-retail, online travel, and online brokerage industries.

You can download the full report here, but a few things I found most interesting:

• Amazon has the second highest score in the entire ACSI (which includes 200+ companies), behind only Heinz. That is a stunning achievement for a retailer with such a broad mission.
• Online travel aggregators like Expedia, Travelocity, and Orbitz continue to slip and are having significant trouble differentiating themselves from each other.
• Online brokerage does better than expected, given the slowing economy (which usually results in lower satisfaction with any kind of investing). Customer satisfaction with Fidelity.com rises 5%, while Charles Schwab.com and TDAmeritrade.com also report increased satisfaction.
• Of all the sectors measured by the ACSI this quarter, e-commerce was the only one to increase. All other sectors saw customer satisfaction scores fall, and the overall ACSI score for the whole economy fell this quarter. I attribute this to the fact that competition is so fierce in the online world that companies HAVE to excel in order to survive. The best competitive differentiator is customer satisfaction. Still, it’s remarkable that the e-commerce sector now outperforms all other service sectors measured by the ACSI, online and offline.

You can read more in the Detroit Free Press and Network World.