Call Center Services Featured Article

Retail Sector Ranks First in Customer Service: Survey

By Hans Lewis
TMCnet Contributor

In eGain’s latest research, North American retail sector ranked first overall in customer service. Overall performance for the sector increased significantly from a score of 1.8, or below average, out of 4.0 in 2009 to 2.3, which is above average, in 2010, highest among all sectors evaluated. Cross-channel customer experience, while still slightly “below average,” was still the highest among all sectors included in the research. eGain Communications (News - Alert) Corp. is a provider of multichannel customer service and knowledge management software for on-site and on-demand deployment.

“Retail sector performance was a bright spot in this year’s ‘mystery shopping’ customer service research. However, channel silos still remain across knowledge, policy and process. Retailers that break down these silos through a Customer Interaction Hub, or “CIH,” strategy will be better positioned to grow revenues, improve margins, and lead their markets,” said Anand Subramaniam, vice president of Marketing for eGain.

eGain’s 2010 State of Customer Service Study evaluated multiple aspects of web self-service and contact center customer service of 175 leading enterprises in the U.S. and Canada. These companies are equally distributed across eight sectors: financial services, retail, communications, consumer goods manufacturing, insurance, healthcare, and pharmaceuticals. Retail companies evaluated in the study include both click-and-mortar and pure-play e-tailers.

Analysts used a 'mystery shopping' approach. Customer service performance was measured along multiple dimensions: choice of communication channels, email response, web self-service, cross-channel consistency, single-channel (phone) cross-agent consistency, and phone customer service*. Scores in these metrics were then abstracted to an overall service quotient on a scale of 0.0 to 4.0, for each of the companies that were assessed, as well as for each industry sector and the overall market.

The numeric scores map to the following ratings:

• Poor - less than 1.0
• Below average – greater than & equal to 1.0 and less than 2.0
• Above average – greater than & equal to 2.0 and less than 3.0
• Exceptional – 3.0 to 4.0
• 2009-2010 performance comparison

Overall performance of the sector improved from a score of 1.8 in 2009 to 2.3 in 2010.

Email customer service improved from 2.5 to 3.0, both “above average.”.

Web self-service improved from 1.9, below average, to 2.4, above average. Cross-channel customer experience improved significantly from 0.9, poor, to 1.9, slightly below average.

Cross-agent – phone – consistency dropped slightly from an average of score of 2.0 to 1.9, slightly below average.

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