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New rankings reveal 2017’s customer-experience winners and losers

by | Jan 2, 2018 | Public Relations

New research and rankings by Voice of Customer (VOC) solutions firm ForeSee examine the omnichannel CX scores of top global retailers by revenue, as identified in the Deloitte Global Powers of Retailing 2017 study.

The firm announced the results of its annual Retail Customer Experience (CX) Rankings. Based on survey data from over 40,000 shoppers across their store, web, and mobile experiences, the top three brands based on CX include Amazon (79.1), Williams-Sonoma (78.1), and Kohl’s (77.9), as measured on a 100-point scale.

As the first omnichannel CX rankings of its kind, the report also examines the success of retailers by individual channel—store, web, and mobile. Amazon, Costco, Kohl’s, and Nordstrom each took a top spot in two out of three channels, while Tractor Supply, a company truly calibrated with the needs and expectations of its online customers, ranked number one in web.

New rankings reveal 2017’s customer-experience winners and losers

“Winning retailers understand just how critical customer engagement is—and a consistent customer experience across channels is a requirement for delivering on customer expectations,” said Nikki Baird, managing partner at RSR Research, in a news release. “Retailers need to take note that, while there are some highly competitive companies topping the ForeSee Retail CX Rankings, there is still a lot of opportunity to provide a truly differentiated customer experience, especially considering that no retailer ranks highly across all three channels.”

New rankings reveal 2017’s customer-experience winners and losers

As ‘channel surfing’ between web, mobile, and store becomes the norm, customers are creating their own unique purchase path from browse to buy. In fact, this year’s report confirmed that more than a quarter of purchases were made in a different channel than where the journey started.

Other important data points include:

  • 57 percent of shoppers are using a mobile device while shopping in a store.
  • 49 percent who start in mobile are now staying in mobile through the purchase. This is up significantly from 33% last year.
  • 41 percent are using two or more channels during the purchase process.

New rankings reveal 2017’s customer-experience winners and losers

“This year’s Retail CX Rankings mark a tipping point towards an all-channel shopping experience,” said Eric Feinberg, vice president at ForeSee and author of the report, in the release. “There is an incredible opportunity for retailers to benefit from the growth in channel surfing, most notably within the fast-rising contribution of mobile to the overall customer journey. Retailers that understand and provide a seamless omnichannel customer journey are in the best place to win the hearts and wallets of shoppers.”

According to new research this fall from Gartner, 48 percent of companies have calculated a positive relationship between customer experience or satisfaction and financial or business impact. The ability to predict the business impact of each CX investment is possible if companies use a scientifically-proven model for CX measurement across channels. Case in point: a national retailer, leveraging CX intelligence from ForeSee, enjoyed a $149 million increase in revenue tied to a one-point increase in CX. As the Retail CX Rankings help illustrate, even a tenth-of-a-point increase in CX has impact.

Download the report here.

New rankings reveal 2017’s customer-experience winners and losers

Richard Carufel
Richard Carufel is editor of Bulldog Reporter and the Daily ’Dog, one of the web’s leading sources of PR and marketing communications news and opinions. He has been reporting on the PR and communications industry for over 17 years, and has interviewed hundreds of journalists and PR industry leaders. Reach him at richard.carufel@bulldogreporter.com; @BulldogReporter

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