ForeSee Results has been releasing a weekly online satisfaction benchmark for four years in a row, and Cyber Monday 2009 was the lowest level of holiday satisfaction seen thus far. On the ACSI’s 100-point scale, satisfaction on Cyber Monday this year was 73.1, down nearly 4% from satisfaction levels on Cyber Monday of 2008. In addition, satisfaction over the holiday weekend (Black Friday, Saturday, and Sunday) was down nearly 3% year-over-year.
ForeSee Results measures several key elements of online satisfaction including things like navigation, price, merchandise, product browsing, site performance, etc. Though priorities for improvement will differ greatly from site to site, scores for all of these elements were down this year.
“Perhaps most troubling is what we see when we look at future behaviors,” said Larry Freed, President and CEO of ForeSee Results. “The ACSI methodology is able to quantify how the online shopping experience contributes to likely future purchases, both online and offline. Our data shows that shoppers are less likely to purchase online and offline this year than in any other year we’ve measured, which could indicate that the rosy year-over-year revenue numbers we’ve seen so far may not keep up through the holiday season. While we should see a modest increase in online sales overall this year, it will be the retailers who are satisfying customers online who will reap the true rewards.”
However, there was a real bright spot among ForeSee Results’ findings. Although shopper satisfaction overall was down, buyer satisfaction on Cyber Monday was at its highest levels in the four years that ForeSee Results has measured it, meaning that those who actually purchased online on Cyber Monday were happier than they’ve ever been, though still less likely to purchase online than they have been in previous years.
“The increasing gap between buyer satisfaction and browser or non-buyer satisfaction is concerning,” said Kevin Ertell, ForeSee Results Vice President of Retail Strategy. “Browsers are a much larger part of the population, and their declining satisfaction could prove to be a major obstacle to the opportunity for growth.”
ForeSee Results’ extensive data analysis shows that on e-retail websites with superior satisfaction scores (over 80 on the study’s 100-point scale), customers are significantly more likely to purchase online and offline than are visitors to sites with subpar customer satisfaction (below 70).
“In a down economy, successful retailers have more to gain,” added Freed. “The e-retailers who are doing well now and satisfying customers will be the best positioned to capture available market share when other retailers fail to meet customers’ increasingly high standards and expectations.”
