StellaService VP of Research Kevon Hills joined STORES Media editor Susan Reda for its E-commerce Elite: Consumers’ Favorite 50 Retailers webcast. Joining Reda and Hills for the presentation was Artemis Berry, vice president of digital retail for Shop.org, and Pam Goodfellow, Principal Analyst at Prosper Insights.
The event showcased the findings of this year’s Favorite 50 list of consumers’ top ecommerce websites, and Hills joined to present exclusive new data on the emerging customer service metrics that shape the online shopping experience.
Companies topping the STORES list this year include first-place Amazon, Walmart, eBay, Kohl’s, Best Buy and Macy’s.
“We believe that, in today’s competitive market, the service experience is paramount,” Hills said during the webcast. “Companies that focus on differentiating themselves to meet the expectation of shoppers are the companies that will lead their respective industries today as well as in the future.”
“We try to understand what it’s like to be a shopper with these different companies. We do so by actually becoming the shopper ourselves. We go out and email companies, we call companies, we live chat companies on a daily basis, as well as order products and return products so we can fully understand how companies perform in the speed department as well as how they perform in the quality department. For us it’s all about transparency, objectivity and consistency in the way we evaluate Retailer A through Retailer Z.”
For this study StellaService Research looked at 127 of the largest retailers across 5 key metrics that retailers should be focusing on.
Metric No. 1: Order Lifecycle
Definition: Total Days to Delivery + Total Days to Refund Processed
Top Performers: Amazon, HP, Staples
Average of Top Performers: 6.6 days
“The reason this metric is important is because a lot of companies focus on the outbound — meaning the shipping aspect. They offer free shipping and they try to get items out the door very quickly, they try to beat the competition and keep up with the Amazons of the world. But, a lot of people don’t focus on the backend part, meaning refunds. We wanted to understand how companies are performing holistically when it comes to fulfillment.”
Hills continued: “The average of the top performers is 6.6 days, which means that on average these companies are taking just under a week to complete the entire shopping experience, which is absolutely incredible. Big kudos to Amazon, HP and Staples.”
Metric No. 2: Offered to Complete Transaction
Definition: Any suggestion made by CSR that would lead to the transaction of money
Top Performers: Sears, Dell, Microsoft
Average of Top Performers: 18%
“This is a metric we started collecting less than a year ago,” said Hills. “We wanted to understand how many companies are actually trying to close sales [through] their customer care team. We’ve seen a huge paradigm shift from three years ago to where we are today, where the service center and contact center were really an area of cost. ‘We have to set up because people need to reach out to us and we have to be available to answer their questions.’ But now we’re starting to see people use the customer care team as an investment and an area to increase customer loyalty. And second, they’re now starting to use [the contact center] to close sales. Sears, Dell and Microsoft are leading the way.”Metric No. 3: Difference Between Estimated and Actual Delivery Dates
Definition: Whether or not the retailer set a delivery expectation in post-order communications; whether or not the item arrived on or before the estimated delivery date
Top Performers: Diapers.com, Amazon, Staples
Average of Top Performers: 2.8 days for estimated delivery; .85 days early for actual delivery
“We wanted to look at how retailers are setting and managing the expectations of shoppers,” Hills said. “How are retailers communicating the estimated delivery date, and how close are they in terms of actual performance to what the estimate is. The top performers we’re seeing here — Diapers, Amazon, Staples — are really good at nailing that.”Metric No. 4: Refund Provided In 28 Days/Notification of Refund In Process
Definition: Refund was processed and received within 28 days; e-mail was sent regarding the return or refund
Top Performers: Amazon, RevZilla, Costco
Average of Top Performers: 4.8 days to process refund
“Retailers for a very long time, and we’re still seeing it today, have not focused on the returns experience,” said Hills. “It sounds strange to say that retailers need to invest in returns, but it’s really the last touchpoint a customer has with a retailer. If that returns experience is poor, it’s less likely that shoppers will come back in the future to make another purchase.”Metric No. 5: CSR Addressed Two Questions Over Chat Without Reminder
Definition: CSR provided a response to two random sample questions without needing the questions repeated
Top Performers: L.L.Bean, MRPORTER.com, Coach
Average of Top Performers: 91%
“The reason we ask two questions at the beginning is that we want to measure customer effort,” Hills said. “How often are CSRs paying attention to both questions? The fact that agents aren’t reading the first question leads to customers having to repeat the question. It’s always a frustrating experience when you have to repeat yourself. This is something retailers struggle with.”You can read more about the study at the NRF blog.
Subscribe to our weekly email digest.