Attempts to rate online retailers according to the customer experience they offer usually put Amazon at the top. But in a new survey of 51 leading European online retailers by Forrester Research, Jeff Bezos is beaten to the top slot by Argos. This may seem surprising to some. Argos doesn't come across as a cutting-edge retailer, so much so you can't help wondering whether Forrester skewed ratings to get a jaded media interested.
"There's no cynical motive there and it's not about being cutting edge. I have heard that at the store level, the Argos customer experience is wanting," says Hellen Omwando, author of the Forrester report, The Best of Europe's Online Retail. "But for us it's about how they manage to move customers from the web, across catalogues to their stores, that's key. Compared to other multi-channel retailers, they are ahead." Argos has recognised that we're now in the clicks and mortar age, in which the net is just one channel among many that retailers can use to reach con sumers, says Omwando. The company uses all channels - the net, catalogues and stores - to build a productive relationship with consumers, one that gives customers more control and leads to a better shopping experience.
Visitors can buy online for home delivery or check stock availability prior to a store visit, or buy online then collect in store, or reserve something online then pay in store (if they're worried about security). They can return products to a store or arrange to have it picked up. Throughout the process, security and privacy information is always made clear. Thanks to things like in-store returns of online purchases and easy availability of customer advice by telephone, "there's very little risk for a customer shopping with Argos online," says Indira Thambia, head of e-commerce at Argos.
Customer service by telephone is a problem for Amazon, says Omwando. "They've got self-service tools, but finding customer service telephone numbers on their site is hard." Email can be too slow if you have a serious problem, she says. "The main reason Amazon does this is because telephone support costs a lot. If you're a business, you need to take care of the bottom line, but don't do it at the expense of customer experience."
As sites expand, customer experience can suffer, says Omwando. Hence Tesco's relatively poor showing (only number 15, despite being the top online grocer in Europe). Tesco has diversified into other product ranges haphazardly, says Omwando. You can't use one shopping cart across the different shops on their site, in contrast to the Dutch online grocer Albert.nl. "Everyone says that Tesco is the best because it's making money. But on their site, the user experience is very broken."
Other poor performers include the German eBay, marked down into the forties because of the confusing way it's added conventional fixed price retail to its core auctions. "I expected Expedia to be in the top five," Omwando continues. "But they're only at number 11." Expedia was a trend-setter in travel but has perhaps become a little complacent, she suggests. The site has failed to add useful new services - for example letting users send tickets they buy to multiple delivery addresses. As a result, other travel sites (including some that use Expedia's design) now outpace it - like the French train service SNCF, which, says Omwando, "offers more customer choice than Expedia".
The Forrester view is that customer experience will become much more important as competition increases. Pricing is a factor, Omwando says, but retailers may not always want to compete on price, so to stay ahead they can innovate in the area of customer experience. Overall, Omwando expects the key online retailers to do well at Christmas. "We expect to see 25% of all online retail sales in the UK being done over November and December." Shoppers are still keen to avoid crowds and they know they can find some things easier online than offline, she says.
Argos.co.uk's Indira Thambia agrees. Argos has a new site this Christmas, specifically designed to make seasonal shopping easier, she explains. In response to consumer feedback, the site has more flexible search functions. Customers can also get text alerts, when products they want (the must-have toy, for example) come back in stock. And customers now don't have to say in advance whether they want to reserve a product for in-store collection or get it delivered. They can shop, fill their basket then decide. A simple thing, but, says Thambia, "it makes the shopping experience easier. The idea is to build things to enable customers to stay with us."
Thambia says that around 5% of Argos's business is online retail - transactions done on the site for home delivery. A far greater number do research online or make reservations using the Click and Collect service. "But in the end, it doesn't matter to us. We are truly a multi-channel retailer. We don't care where the transactions are started and where they're finished - so long as they are finished in the Argos environment."
