John Lewis.com has dropped out of the group of e-commerce sites that surpass the excellence threshold in the ForeSee 2013 Christmas Customer Experience Index, it was announced today.
The multi-channel department store lost a point on the Index from last year but managed to hold onto its lofty third position in the Index. It held off competition from rivals marksandspencer.com and argos.co.uk but lost its status of a company that holds an 80+ point score on the study‘s 100-point scale.
Analytics firm Forsee, which measured its data from a sample of nearly 10,000 shoppers who had visited any of the top 40 retail websites this Christmas season, dishes out scores of 80+ to retailers of excellence.
The Index measures four high-level factors that affect overall customer satisfaction: site functionality, price, merchandise and content.
Marketplace giant Amazon, who was the only retailer to achieve a 80+ overall score, maintained its 2012 score of 84 but amazon.co.uk fell by two points to 84.
ForeSee say that a one-point decrease on the Index “has the potential for significant negative impact.”
Overall customer satisfaction for the top 40 online UK retail sites slightly declined from 74 to 73 from Christmas 2012 to Christmas 2013 – the first time since the survey‘s 2007 launch.
Ben Stollard, UK Director at ForeSee told Retail Gazette that users were now more sophisticated and savvy and had higher expectations as a result.
“Customer experience has become the premier battleground for retailers – a trend we‘ve seen in the last six months,” he said.
On-demand media channel Netflix were the most improved; rising three points to 71 and Ikea also rose three points to a score of 76.
At the lowest end of the scale, Ticketmaster and B&Q (DIY.com) tie for last place with just 68 points.
