Transportation and logistics companies in the U.S. are doing a better job of protecting their customers" online personal data, according to a new survey by The Customer Respect Group Inc. in Ipswich, Mass.
And most of the 19 transportation and logistics companies surveyed said they don"t share customer information with third parties or business partners, according to the Second Quarter 2005 Online Customer Respect Survey.
The survey is done twice a year to determine how well companies treat their online customers and how clearly they explain corporate policies. In compiling its data, Customer Respect Group assesses company Web sites by looking at dozens of attributes that it claims correlate to a successful experience for online users. The company then puts those attributes into one of six categories to arrive at its overall score, or Customer Respect Index. Those six categories are: simplicity, responsiveness, transparency, principles, attitude and privacy.
The Customer Respect Index is based on a scale of 0 to 10, with 10 being the best score.
"I think a good takeaway on this particular report is overall the industry did much better than in previous surveys," said Terry Golesworthy, president of The Customer Respect Group. "The companies really pulled up significantly in the protection of personal data -- nearly all of them have moved toward not sharing data unless a customer specifically say they allow it -- that"s a huge change from the last time." (See story.)
Golesworthy said the trend toward protecting personal data is due, in part, to concerns about identity theft.
"The companies that did not make those changes [to protect customer data] are really standing out now," he said. "The other area where companies have improved is responsiveness -- which we had a little bit of trouble with last time. It"s still the lowest score, but it did improve about 50 percent to 60 percent. [Companies] like Fed Ex and DHL improved their positions because they put a lot of effort into updating their policies and processes dealing with e-mail."
Companies with lower scores on the customer-respect scale need to be more transparent about company policies, he said. That includes more forthright explanations to customers about what companies are doing with their data.
Once companies begin spelling out their policies, pressure from unhappy customers can lead to changes, he said. "Once you have to be very transparent and clear about how you treat personal data, then there"s a tendency to try and improve it -- because customers don"t like it," Golesworthy said.
United Parcel Service Inc. and the U.S. Postal Service tied for best among mail, package and freight delivery firms, while Overnite Transportation Company in Richmond, Va., did best in the trucking and truck-leasing category and scored best overall, according to the survey. Meanwhile, the firms in this study scored considerably better, at 6.6 overall, than the overall score of 5.6 they received in the transportation report for the third quarter of last year.
In the area of customer responsiveness, only 18 percent of customer inquiries went unanswered by companies in the latest survey, compared with 26 percent that went unanswered six months ago. And the latest survey found that more companies in the industry are providing site maps and keyword search functions.
The survey also found that:
- Companies received the best overall rating, 7.6, for simplicity and the worst, 5.5, for responsiveness.
- Only 24 percent of of the firms use autoresponder technology, in which e-mails are automatically sent to users to confirm the receipt of their inquiries and let them know when they should expect responses.
- The vast majority of the transportation and logistics firms, 89 percent, now have privacy policies on their sites explaining how personal data is used, and 84 percent state that they don"t share data with outside third parties or business partners. The rest were either unclear or didn"t provide any guidance as to whether they share data with outside parties and business partners.