ACSI E-Commerce Results

It’s that time of year again: time
for the University of Michigan’s American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) report on e-commerce. The e-commerce report includes the e-retail, online travel, and online brokerage industries.

You can download the full report here, but a
few things I found most interesting:

• Amazon has the second
  highest score in the entire ACSI (which includes 200+ companies), behind only
  Heinz. That is a stunning achievement for a retailer with such a broad mission.
• Online travel
  aggregators like Expedia, Travelocity, and Orbitz continue to slip and are
  having significant trouble differentiating themselves from each
  other.
• Online brokerage does
  better than expected, given the slowing economy (which usually results in lower
  satisfaction with any kind of investing). Customer satisfaction with
  Fidelity.com rises 5%, while Charles Schwab.com and TDAmeritrade.com also report
  increased satisfaction.
• Of all the sectors
  measured by the ACSI this quarter, e-commerce was the only one to increase. All
  other sectors saw customer satisfaction scores fall, and the overall ACSI score
  for the whole economy fell this quarter. I attribute this to the fact that
  competition is so fierce in the online world that companies HAVE to excel in
  order to survive. The best competitive differentiator is customer satisfaction.
  Still, it’s remarkable that the e-commerce sector now outperforms all other
  service sectors measured by the ACSI, online and
  offline.

You can read more in the Detroit
Free Press and Network World.