John Lewis drops out of ForeSee’s 'excellence threshold’

Department store chain John Lewis has dropped out of the ‘threshold of excellence’ in the ForeSee 2013 Christmas Customer Experience Index, which measures customer experience across the UK's top 40 online retailers.

The annual index ranked John Lewis third, the same as last year behind Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk, however the department store fell by a point to 79, meaning that it went under the threshold of excellence that is given to companies scoring more than 80 points in the study’s 100-point scale.

However, the retailer did hold off competition from its rivals as Marks and Spencer achieved 77, an increase of 2 points to take fifth place, while Debenhams could only managed tenth with a score of 75. Other online fashion retailers to make the top 20 included New Look and Next, both with a score of 75, and House of Fraser were ranked 17 with a score of 74, the same as Sports Direct.

While Asos, River Island, Very.co.uk, and Topshop were in the bottom half of the table, with popular high street store Topshop only scoring 70 overall in online customer satisfaction. With Foresee concluding that any merchant scoring under 77 is in danger of losing business to competitors scoring 77 or higher, and added that though those with average scores should also be concerned.

This is the seventh year that analytics firm ForeSee has conducted an analysis of customers’ shopping experience with the UK’s top 40 online retailers, which measures its data from a sample of nearly 10,000 customers surveys collected each year during the prime Christmas shopping period (in November and December). The index measures year-on-year comparisons of not only aggregate e-retail satisfaction, but also of satisfaction with individual retailers using four high-level factors that affect overall customer satisfaction: site functionality, price, merchandise and content.

This year, marketplace giant Amazon, 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 unveils 2013 customer satisfaction scores

Overall, the report indicates a slight decrease in aggregate satisfaction from Christmas 2012 to Christmas 2013, from 74 to 73 on the study's 100-point scale, the first time since the survey was launched in 2007 that there has been a fall in online customer satisfaction after five years of stability and growth.

Whilst a one-point drop is considered a small decrease, the direct effect that satisfaction has on revenues and profitability means that even this slight reversal of fortune has the potential for significant negative impact, according to Foresee. Research it conducted across the top 100 US retailers showed that, for an individual company, a one-point increase in satisfaction is likely to lead to a 10.6 percent increase in revenues generated on the web, suggesting a potentially major loss of value for UK online retailers should this decline persist.

Larry Freed, CEO at ForeSee, commented: "After witnessing the aggregate customer satisfaction score increasing every year we've reported on the top 40 UK retailers' Christmas performance, it's disappointing to see a drop this year. It may be a fall of only one point, but this represents significant fallout for many – especially those which have seen larger drops.

“With a proven, quantifiable relationship between a positive customer experience online and increased loyalty, sales and recommendations, many of the online retailers in the UK Top 40 clearly need to pay more attention to satisfying their UK customers. This is especially true of the 19 retailers listed with an average or lower score, which are risking loyalty, recommendations, sales and market share."