For Those With Retail Trouble, the Problems Worsen Online

Research firm ForeSee released its customer satisfaction ratings for the shopping season — its Holiday E-retail Satisfaction Index. The e-commerce ratings mirror, in most cases, the states of the parent companies’ revenue.

Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) ranked first. That makes sense. Amazon is the world’s largest e-commerce company. Without excellent customer service, it would not hold that position for long. Amazon’s revenue has grown at a rate near 50% for the past two quarters.

The bottom of the list is littered with some companies that have deeply offended customers in some way. Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX) is there. It raised rates and confused its subscribers with a jumble of explanations. The Gap (NYSE: GPS) is near the bottom as well. Gap’s image probably was not helped when it announced that it would shutter 21% of its flagship stores in the U.S. The news almost certainly undermined employee morale as well. This should have spilled over into customer service problems.

The bottom of the list also contained some firms that have to improve customer relations if they are to recover from terrible sales problems that have persisted for years. All three office suppliers fall toward the troubled part of the list: Office Depot (NYSE: ODP), Staples (NASDAQ: SPLS) and Office Max (NYSE: OMX). And of course, as should be expected — Sears (NASDAQ: SHLD) is there.

Customers probably see company e-commerce efforts through the same lens as efforts and satisfaction in bricks-and-mortar operations. That shows up in the ForeSee report.

Douglas A. McIntyre