foresee retail benchmark · pdf file2 the foresee retail benchmark report – august 2016...

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F O R E S E E R E TA I L B E N C H M A R K R E P O R T

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2 T H E F O R E S E E R E TA I L B E N C H M A R K R E P O R T – AU G U S T 2 0 1 6 W W W. F O R E S E E . C O M

E X E C U T I V E S U M M A R Y

Most companies can benchmark against competitors in terms of sales, revenue, number of stores, etc.

They also benchmark against industry averages for everything from click-through rates to conversion

rates to average order size.

But if you believe all the research proving that customer experience (CX) predicts future revenue,

loyalty, market share, and stock prices, then you need to know how you stack up in terms of CX as

well. Being able to benchmark against other direct competitors using a scientific methodology is

extremely valuable for assessing success and progress.

Benchmarks are incredibly important to us. After all, we know how we stack up to competitors in terms of sales and market share. Since CX is a proven predictor of loyalty, revenue, and stock prices, we need to know how we stack up in terms of experience as well. ForeSee benchmarks are one of many useful services provided by ForeSee to help us assess our success.

ROB SCHMULTS

SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, E-COMMERCE & CRM, TALBOTS


A B O U T F O R E S E E R E TA I L B E N C H M A R K S

As part of ForeSee's service, we make our robust benchmarks available to clients. In retail alone, we

have 70 benchmarks, allowing our clients an unparalleled ability to compare their performance in

CX against themselves over time, against direct competitors, and against best-in-class companies.

Our benchmarks give you the context you need to understand the impact of customer experience

improvements you make.

5 WAYS TO BENCHMARK

Suggestions for useful benchmarking, all of which are available from ForeSee:

1. Against yourself, over time: How does your company’s performance stack up against itself compared

to last week, last month, and last year? Is your CX improving, declining, or maintaining the status quo?

How about specific elements of the experience, or the customer experience with a specific channel or

touchpoint? You should measure customer experience overall and by discrete customer experience.

2. Against competitors: Are you comparing your company’s CX performance to competitors? Chances are,

your team is already doing this without involving any data at all — and that’s a mistake.

3. Against best-in-class companies, regardless of industry: Whether or not you compete with CX leaders

like Apple, Nordstrom, Amazon and Netflix, your customers are subconsciously comparing you to them.

So while your CX scores may have limitations due to your industry or other factors, you should be aware

of how the best of the best perform.

4. Against companies in your industry with similar touchpoints or experiences: It’s one thing to know how

your web CX stacks up against your competitors. But do you know how your “Buy Online, Pickup In

Store” experience measures up? Or your checkout process? Or your mobile app?

5. Seasonally: Some retailers find it useful to compare their performance to peers during certain key times

of year with specified sets of custom questions. The ForeSee team puts together custom question sets

around winter holidays, Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, Father's Day, and back to school. Retailers can

choose to add those questions to their surveys and compare their performance to peers.

ForeSee works with hundreds of retailers in every sub-category of retail, including 70 of the top 100

retailers, according to Internet Retailer. ForeSee’s retail benchmarks (including both ForeSee clients

and other top retailers measured in ForeSee’s annual FXI) include companies like Amazon.com, Apple,

Argos, Best Buy, Costco, CVS, Dell, Disney Store, Drugstore.com. Etsy, Express, Gap, Netflix, Neiman

Marcus, Nike, Nordstrom, REI, Sears, Target, Victoria’s Secret, Walgreens, and Walmart.


H O W TO U S E T H E F O R E S E E B E N C H M A R K S

According to Dan Chester, ForeSee’s Retail Practice Leader, standardizing the use of benchmarks

can make them more useful. First the retailer can look broadly at benchmarks across the customer’s

entire journey and zero in on those measures that are doing well versus where they are below average

performance. The retailer can then zero in on the specific scores that underperform ForeSee’s

benchmarks to understand what is driving those lower scores.

For example, a retailer may find that their mobile site, BOPIS measure, and post-visit fulfillment

CX scores are all at or above industry standards, but that the experience of those who abandoned a

shopping cart is well below the benchmark.

The retailer can drill into main drivers and micro-drivers of underperformance — including looking at

survey results, verbatim comments, session replays of the users’ struggle, and usability analysis — to

identify areas of improvement and identify best practices for success.

Many of our retail clients also use benchmarks as a performance metric or review metric for employees.

ForeSee benchmark scores, like all ForeSee CX scores, are on a 100-point scale. They are index scores,

not percentages.


C R O S S - I N D U ST RY B E N C H M A R K S

First, let’s look at how retail in general stacks up to other industries in terms of desktop customer

experience. We can see that retail (average CX score of 72 on ForeSee’s 100-point scale) performs well

above the average overall (68), and in fact exceeds all of our major industry benchmarks. Retailers

have worked hard to deliver good customer experiences, and it’s paying off.

Industry CX Score

Average 68

Retail 72

Product Manufacturer 71

Financial Services 69

Automotive 68

Content 65

Insurance 56

Utility 53

Telecom 46

FIgURE 1: CROSS-INDUSTRY BENCHMARKS, DESKTOP WEB CX


TOUCHPOINT

Customers shopping in stores may look far more satisfied than customers shopping online, in mobile,

or interacting with retailers through a contact center. However, most of these surveys are aimed at

purchasers only, while the digital and contact center surveys are for web browsers. Purchasers are

naturally more satisfied than browsers, or they wouldn’t have purchased!

More useful is the comparison of digital channels, since they represent the experience of browsers

and provide a better apples-to-apples comparison. Mobile apps, mobile sites, and tablet sites all

consistently outperform desktop websites when comparing digital benchmarks. We know mobile is the

future in terms of usage; this data may partially explain customers’ willingness to shift. In addition to

convenience, they’re having a better experience.

Many retailers measure all these channels with ForeSee, and often find they outstrip the benchmark in

one channel while falling short in another.

CX Score

Store 87

Mobile App 81

Mobile Site 78

Contact Center 75

Tablet SIte 74

Desktop Web 72

FIgURE 2: RETAIL BENCHMARKS: BY TOUCHPOINT


PRODUCT CATEgORY

The next way to look at benchmarks is by retail category. If the average CX score for retail websites

is 72, cosmetics retailers far exceed the average (82), as do food and beverage retailers (80) and shoe

retailers (79). Let’s say your desktop CX score is a 70. If you’re a food and beverage retailer, you’re in

trouble. Your competitors are going to eat your lunch. If you’re a mobile phone retailer with a CX score

of 70, you can just head to the bank — you are leaps and bounds ahead of the average in your industry.

The ForeSee team can share further insights about trends and challenges within specific retail

product categories.

CX Score

Average 72

Cosmetics 82

Food and Beverage 80

Shoes 79

Accessories 76

Health and Personal Care 76

Sporting, Outdoor and Fitness 76

Apparel - Women's 75

Gifts 75

Home Appliances/Housewares 75

Apparel 74

Specialty Retailers 72

Home Furnishings 71

Big Box Retailers 70

Mass Merchants 70

High SKU Count Stores 70

Department Stores 70

Mass Merchants - Brick and Mortar 69

Discount Stores 67

Hardware and Home Centers 63

Mobile Phones and Accessories 54

FIgURE 3: RETAIL DESKTOP BENCHMARKS: BY PRODUCT CATEgORIES


TYPE OF RETAILER

How do you make most of your sales? Consumers rate pure plays and companies with a legacy of

catalogs and call centers with higher CX scores (both categories have an average CX of 79) than

they do direct manufacturers of durables (64). So as you’re evaluating your CX score, take into

consideration what kind of retailer you are.

CX Score

Average 72

Internet Pure Play 79

Catalog/Call Center/Other 79

Catalog Marketing 79

Manufacturer Direct (Non-Durable) 76

Manufacturer Direct 72

Multi-Channel 72

Brick and Mortar 71

Manufacturer Direct (Durables) 64

FIgURE 4: RETAIL DESKTOP BENCHMARKS: BY TYPE OF RETAILER


CUSTOMER JOURNEY

Many retail clients measure at various points along the customer journey, including: pre-purchase,

during consideration (digital browse), during the online checkout process, post-purchase, and post-

fulfillment. Measuring each of these discrete steps in the journey can provide great insight. Measuring

the BOPIS experience is an area of huge growth recently for ForeSee clients.

CX scores for fulfillment surveys tend to do best (80), so if you are underperforming in this

benchmark there are real opportunities to examine your business to make sure your customers

will buy again. Online checkout experiences are also less stellar (64), indicating an area where an

innovative retailer has an opportunity to shine.

CX Score

Average 72

Fulfillment 80

Post-Purchase 76

Buy Online, PickUp In Store (BOPIS) 76

Digital Browse 72

Online Checkout 64

FIgURE 5: RETAIL BENCHMARKS: BY CUSTOMER JOURNEY


MOBILE

Are you measuring your customers’ mobile experience, tablet

experience, and in-app experience? And if so, how do you stack up?

That all depends. If you’re a big box retailer with a mobile score

of 80, you’re killing it. High CX scores predict all sorts of good

things for companies — from increased revenue to higher stock

prices and improved loyalty. But if you’re a shoe store with a

mobile score of 80, your customers may soon discover all your

competitors, who are providing a better mobile CX, and choose to

buy their next pair of kicks elsewhere.

CX Score

Average 78

Shoes 82

Sporting, Outdoor and Fitness 81

Apparel 80

Gifts 80

Jewelry, Luggage, Leather Goods 80

Accessories 79




Luxury Goods 76

Luxury- Apparel and Accessories 75

Mass Merchants 73

Mass Merchants- Brick and Mortar 73

Discount Stores 73

FIgURE 6: RETAIL MOBILE SITE BENCHMARKS


Mobile experiences and audiences are different enough now that

most retailers find value in differentiating between mobile web and

tablet. Customers are more satisfied with mobile web experiences

than they are with tablet experiences in general, suggesting this

could be an area where an ambitious retailer could really stand out.

CX Score

Average 74

Apparel 77




Mass Merchants 70

Mass Merchants- Brick and Mortar 68

CX Score

Average 81



FIgURE 7: RETAIL TABLET SITE BENCHMARKS

FIgURE 8: RETAIL MOBILE APP BENCHMARKS

Finally: apps. More and more retailers provide apps for customers, and if you have one, you should be

measuring it. After all, if you don’t measure it you can’t manage it. Customer experience scores for

apps on average (81) actually outperform scores for mobile web (74) and tablet experiences (78). Build

that app!


STORES

For many retailers, stores are still where the majority of sales take

place, even as web and mobile channels increase their influence on

what happens there. Therefore, the store channel is a critical place

to measure, understand, and improve the customer experience.

On average, CX is high (87) with shoe stores slightly edging out

apparel and specialty retail stores.

CX Score

Average Across All Retail Stores 87

Shoe Stores 89

Apparel Stores 88

Specialty Retailer Stores 87

FIgURE 9: RETAIL SCORE LOCATIONS

Contact ForeSee to learn which of our benchmarks can help illuminate where in your customer journey you shine and where you may need help.


A B O U T F O R E S E E

ForeSee helps organizations keep their customers happy and loyal. ForeSee® CX Suite allows companies

to manage all of their customer experience needs from one place, capture the entire customer journey,

and prioritize their most critical CX issues. Clients include more than 2,000 companies worldwide

— in retail, government, financial services, and other industries — that have transformed their VOC

programs into a strategic business discipline that delivers economic impact. Only ForeSee offers a multi-

patented algorithmic approach to customer experience measurement, access to almost 200 million

benchmarked experiences, and actionable insights from a team of 200 expert analysts that give certainty

to CX improvements. Founded in 2001, ForeSee is headquartered in Ann Arbor, MI and has offices

in New York, San Francisco, Mountain View, St. Louis, Cleveland, Vancouver, and London. For more

information, visit www.foresee.com.

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foresee retail benchmark · pdf file2 the foresee retail benchmark report – august 2016...

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