Even as online sales grow, retailers aren't doing enough to satisfy customers, missing opportunities to transform browsers into buyers, said Larry Freed, president of ForeSee Results and author of the report.
Customer satisfaction, when measured scientifically using the University of Michigan's American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), has proved to be a leading indicator of financial performance and how customers will behave in the future, according to the report.
Of the top 40 online retail sites measured by ForeSee and FGI, four scored 82 or higher on the ACSI's 100-point scale; 82 is considered a superior rating.
Netflix.com was the leader in browser satisfaction, with a score of 85, followed by Amazon.com at 83 and QVC.com and Newegg.com, each at 82, according to the report. Twenty-nine of the 37 companies that were measured this spring and during the 2005 holiday season posted higher customer satisfaction scores in the latest study, according to the report.
When the top 40 sites were compared to their scores a year ago, 24 had a lower rating, and six remained the same, according to the study. Only seven online retailers, led by Chadwicks.com (78), which saw a 6.8 percent jump in satisfaction, managed to raise their scores, Freed said.
Several factors caused the rise and fall of satisfaction scores throughout the year, he said. As expected, satisfaction dropped during the holiday season -- largely because of an influx of first-time visitors, who are less familiar with any particular site, he said. As a result, that group of shoppers is harder to please.
"Further, the scores didn't completely rebound in the spring 2006 index for a very obvious reason: Consumers constantly are raising their expectations and demanding even higher levels of site performance and customer service from the industry's largest retail sites," Freed said. "As e-commerce continues to evolve, shoppers shape their expectations based on the collective experiences of all the sites they visit."
From the customer satisfaction perspective, large multichannel retailers on the Web often struggle to keep up with Web-only merchants and successful direct marketers. For instance, an analysis of browser satisfaction levels reveals:
Three of the top-performing companies are Web-only merchants, which is not at all surprising considering they can devote all resources to the Web and don't have the challenges of multichannel consistency.
Amazon.com is the only company that ranks in the top five for both sales (no. 1) and customer satisfaction (no. 2).
Both Netflix.com and Newegg.com achieved the same satisfaction scores this year and last.
Among product categories, apparel/accessories merchants had the highest satisfaction score -- 76 -- followed by mass merchants at 75, Freed said.
The study noted that the Internet has not become as price-sensitive a channel as expected, and is not being driven primarily by price competition. More often, site experience or brand is the most influential driver of satisfaction among the top 40 retailers.
Nurturing loyalty among browsers means online retailers must meet their needs and exceed their expectations, the study said.