Every year we do research all through November, over the holiday weekend, on Cyber Monday and through the end of the holiday season.  We identify how customer satisfaction is trending leading into the busiest online shopping season of the year.  Scott Silverman asked me to post a little bit about our findings here.

First, a short word about why we measure online satisfaction and why we think it’s a relevant data point amongst all the Cyber Monday research coming in.  We measure online sat using the methodology of the University of Michigan’s American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI).  We choose this methodology because it’s the only one that has been scientifically proven to predict purchase intent (both online and offline) as well as loyalty and recommendations.  Therfore, for many online retailers, satisfaction is the best measure of future success and can be a crucial bellwether.

We surveyed more than 250k people between Black Friday and Cyber Monday and here’s what we found:

• Online customer sat is down year over year, but only slightly, and not quite as much as I might have expected.
• Perhaps more interesting, satisfaction was actually higher on Cyber Monday than it was at any point in November, a reversal of the recent trend of satisfaction that is lower on Cyber Monday than in previous weeks. The unusual rise in satisfaction over the holiday weekend and into Cyber Monday is probably because e-retailers’ were finally able to live up to the promise of deals and discounts that Cyber Monday shoppers have come to expect.  And this year their expectations for deals, discounts and free shipping was higher then ever.  Now whether they can do that while staying profitable remains to be seen. The discounts seem to be working to drive traffic and sales, but it isn’t sustainable. And is there more than one way to skin a cat? That is, is there more than one way to keep customers coming back and spending money, even during a recession, or do you have to rely on dramatic discounts and promotions?
• On e-retail websites with superior satisfaction scores (over 80 on the study’s 100-point scale), customers are significantly more likely to purchase online and offline than are visitors to sites with subpar customer satisfaction (below 70).  This means in a down economy, e-retailers that are doing a good job satisfying customers have more to gain.  Those that do not satisfy their customers will not only lose today, but unfortunately, in this very competitve and difficult economy may not live to experience another holiday season.  There is more competition amongst retailers for every dollar being spent, and those that satisfy their shoppers will survive…and thrive.

Another interesting thing that came out of the data is that customers appear to be more price sensitive than last year, but not necessarily as much as you might think, given the economy and the fact that they were shopping on a day known for deep price cuts. Every website is going to have different levers to get their customers to buy more and be more loyal. Do you know what yours are? Is it price? Free shipping? Or is it something with far less impact to the bottom line like search or navigatiom.

You can read the full release of the findings here.

Larry Freed, CEO
ForeSee Results
larry.freed@ForeSeeResults.com
www.ForeSeeResults.com
www.FREEDyourMind.com