OpinionLab s CUSTOMER FEEDBACK INDEX Report July 2013
About the Customer Feedback Index The Customer Feedback Index (CFI) is a proprietary measure of brand health, calculated on a 0 to 1000 scale, which uses a sophisticated algorithm to measure customer experience performance across all channels and touchpoints. The Customer Feedback Index incorporates overall experience ratings, customer satisfaction and loyalty ratings, customer intent performance, open-ended comments, as well as ratings of the critical components of the customer experience across channels. The Customer Feedback Index is derived from OpinionLab s patented web, mobile, and store-based feedback solutions, which to date have captured more than a billion pieces of real customer feedback for nearly half the Fortune 50 and hundreds of the world s greatest brands. About Functional Mean Ratings Functional Mean Ratings are a new and revolutionary type of benchmark reporting, offered exclusively by OpinionLab. Functional Mean Ratings are the only set of normative metrics that aggregate customer experience performance scores for highly specific functions, areas, and sections of a brand s digital touchpoints. Based on guidance from industry leaders, Functional Mean Ratings group together more than 2 million URLs that serve similar functional, thematic, and experiential purposes on a website. The result is a score computed on a 1 to 5 scale that provides half of the Fortune 50 with precise, location-specific insights and prescriptive roadmaps for improving customer satisfaction and boosting customer experience performance across channels. OpinionLab s Customer Feedback Index Report 2
CFI Rankings The mid-year, industry-wide Customer Feedback Index stands at 557. The top-performing industries are Financial Services (CFI score of 746) and Insurance (CFI score of 656). The impressive score posted by the Financial Services sector shows how the major commercial banks, credit card providers, and online brokers have rebounded from the lows of 2008 and increased brand loyalty by delivering excellent online banking and investing experiences. Within the retail sector, pure-play Etailers are outperforming their Omnichannel counterparts. Despite deploying a bevy of tactics to meet the needs of the omnichannel shopper, bricks and clicks retail operators are still struggling to build seamlessly remarkable customer experiences across channels. Finally, Healthcare brands must make major strides to improve customer experience performance, as their collective CFI score currently stands roughly 50% lower than the web-wide benchmark average. 481 Etailers CFI 458 500 Omnichannel Retailers CFI Travel CFI 287 Healthcare CFI CFI Score 557 Industry-Wide Customer Feedback Index (CFI) 746 Financial CFI 656 Insurance CFI 417 Airlines CFI OpinionLab s Customer Feedback Index Report 3
CFI Trends By Industry After closing 2012 strong, the industry-wide Customer Feedback Index dipped slightly in the first few months of 2013, only to rebound impressively as the summer season started. Drilling down, some dramatic movements have occurred at the industry level. Omnichannel retailers have seen three straight months of declining CFI scores, while the airline industry saw its CFI score decline to an all-time low of 417. The airline industry has gone from being a leader to being a laggard in terms of satisfying customers and building long-term loyalty. 800 700 600 500 400 300 200 12-Jun 12-Jul 12-Aug 12-Sep 12-Oct 12-Nov 12-Dec 13-Jan 13-Feb 13-Mar 13-Apr 13-May 13-Jun Travel CFI Healthcare CFI Etailers CFI Financial CFI Omnichannel Retailers CFI Insurance CFI Airlines CFI Industry-Wide Customer Feedback Index (CFI) OpinionLab s Customer Feedback Index Report 4
SALUTING TOP PERFORMERS Guitar Center is home to the world s largest selection of musical instruments and accessories. Backed by 250 stores across the country and one of the most vibrant e-commerce portals on the web, Guitar Center offers the fastest, easiest way for musicians to find all the gear they need in one place. Guitar Center also leads the way in terms of delivering amazing experiences that resonate with shoppers and lay the groundwork for long-term customer loyalty. Guitar Center posted an impressive Customer Feedback Index of 570 over the past three months, easily ranking among the top-performing Omnichannel Retail brands. Guitar Center s comprehensive omnichannel customer experience strategy has clearly paid dividends and vaulted the brand into a leadership position in the hearts and minds of customers. Newegg has emerged as one of the most loved and trusted etailers on the web by offering superior shopping experiences, rapid delivery, and stellar customer service. With millions of products and an award-winning web site, Newegg has earned the loyalty of tech-enthusiasts and novice e-shoppers alike. Launching in 2001, Newegg.com was one of the early etail pioneers, innovating and creating many of the fundamental components of the e-commerce experience that we ve all come to know and love. Over the past three months, Newegg s Customer Feedback Index hit a rolling average of 645, outperforming the etail sector average by a whopping 34%! This impressive CFI score is a testament to Newegg s massive product selection, highly competitive pricing, smooth and intuitive site usability, and incredible post-sale support. CareerBuilder is the global leader in human capital solutions, operating the largest job site in the U.S. Every day, CareerBuilder helps match talent with opportunity for employers and job seekers all over the world. Doing something like that might sound daunting; especially in an economy that still has its challenges. But CareerBuilder continues to pass the visitor experience challenge with flying colors. CareerBuilder posted a lofty CFI score of 734, surpassing the industry-wide average by over 200 points. CareerBuilder s Functional Mean Ratings were equally stellar. Underlining its passionate commitment to its members, CareerBuilder excelled in areas where other sites traditionally struggle, posting a Service & Support score of 3.76, which was over 66% higher than the industrywide average. OpinionLab s Customer Feedback Index Report 5
Web-Wide Functional Mean Ratings Loyalty and Account pages led the way in Functional Mean Rating scoring over recent months, indicating that site operators are excelling at delivering account management functionality and online loyalty services including rewards and privilege program membership perks to their current customers. With more money being invested in data mining technologies designed to make search results more precise and personalized, it is surprising to see Search emerge as the 2nd weakest Functional Mean Rating. Across industries, websites continue struggling to deliver great support experiences, a fact that is borne out by the low Functional Mean Rating scores for Service & Support pages. Despite the advent of real-time online chat, social CRM, and other tactics aimed at effectively responding to customers online complaints effectively and deflecting support volume from contact centers, site operators are still performing sub-optimally when it comes to fixes, customer complaints, and rapidly rectifying problematic issues. 2.76 Search 2.95 Information 3.61 Loyalty 2.26 Service & Support 2.90 Home Page 3.05 Account Numbers reflect 3-month Rolling AVG OpinionLab s Customer Feedback Index Report 6
Functional Mean Ratings Tracking While still one of the top-performing Functional Mean Ratings, the Account function has slipped significantly over the past 6 months compared to the other functional ratings. A significant portion of this is driven by device usage trends: the proliferation of more untethered users and new form factors has put greater pressure on brands to deliver seamless and responsive order tracking and account management functionality across mobile and non-mobile device types. Information and Home pages have all seen impressive increases in the Functional Mean Rating scores over the first half of 2013. 4.0 3.5 3.0 2.5 2.0 12-Jun 12-Jul 12-Aug 12-Sep 12-Oct 12-Nov 12-Dec 13-Jan 13-Feb 13-Mar 13-Apr 13-May 13-Jun Loyalty Account Information Search Service & Support Home Page OpinionLab s Customer Feedback Index Report 7
Functional Mean Ratings Shootout Despite dipping below Etailers in the Customer Feedback Index for the first time since Summer 2012, Omnichannel Retailers actually outperformed their pure-play cousins in many of the key page-level Functional Mean Ratings, including a very impressive edge on Checkout page ratings. Online purchasing experiences are often more than the sum of their parts, however, and the significant edge maintained by Etailers in Information and Account page performance ratings helps explain why Etailers continue to maintain their collective edge in the Customer Feedback Index scoring. Time will tell if Etailers can maintain their CFI edge or if Omnichannel Retailers will leverage their impressive Functional Mean Rating scores to recapture their CFI lead over the pure plays. 5 4 3 3.65 3.06 3.03 3.07 3.01 2.74 2.83 2.95 2.78 2.93 2.45 2.48 2.31 2.36 2 1 Home Page Search Account Service & Support Information Products Checkout Omnichannel Retail 3-month Rolling AVG. Etail 3-month Rolling AVG. OpinionLab s Customer Feedback Index Report 8
About OpinionLab OpinionLab is the pioneer and global leader in Omnichannel Voice of Customer (VoC) feedback with over a decade of success and over a dozen patents on major VoC advancements. Starting with the familiar [+] feedback symbol, the company s end-to-end solution suite allows clients to improve the omnichannel experience with precise, real-time intelligence into what customers want and need. Nearly half of the Fortune 50 including Walmart, Bank of America, and Ford Motor Company, choose OpinionLab for actionable VoC insight across web, mobile, store and product touchpoints. For more information, visit OpinionLab online, read the blog or follow Voice of Customer on Twitter. 549 W. Randolph St. Ste 401 Chicago, IL 60661 Phone: (312) 800.4500 Fax: (312) 800.4501 E-mail: info@opinionlab.com www.opinionlab.com OpinionLab s Customer Feedback Index Report 9