By Glenn Cross
In the 2012 ForeSee Mobile Satisfaction Index: Retail Edition, we talk a little about web vs. mobile and saw some interesting results. In our research we discovered that just because you are a leader in the web space doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have to worry about your presence in the mobile arena.
While Amazon.com leads both our ForeSee E-Retail Satisfaction Index: Spring 2012 Top-100 Edition and this newest mobile study, we noticed they have the largest gap between web satisfaction (89) and mobile satisfaction (84). We see the same with Walmart (82 for web, 78 for mobile) and Apple (85 for web, 82 for mobile).
Those are all excellent scores, but the3-, 4-, and 5-point differences could be an early indicator of trouble down the road. We need to take into consideration that mobile is growing and doing so very quickly. And as more and more people begin to adopt mobile as their first line of engagement with retailers, these companies might see their mobile scores continue to deviate from their web scores.
Is this a bad thing? Or, is it nothing to worry about?
Why take the chance…measure it. It’s up to these companies, and businesses in similar situations, to gauge their mobile performance from the customer’s point of view to better understand what the expectations, wants and needs are. By doing so, retailers can then pinpoint areas of improvement and prioritize which changes will get their mobile experience up to snuff and offer the best return on investment.
This is especially true for companies with low web scores and even lower mobile scores. They need to measure, make the right changes, and continue to benchmark against their competition, industry leaders, and themselves to see if the improvements are indeed improvements. This is a must in order for them to stay in the game.
The other side of the story is there are some retailers’ mobile experiences that do outperform their web in customer satisfaction. Sears is a good example of this. Its mobile score outpaces its web score by two points, 77 and 75 respectively. We also see one-point differences in favor of mobile for Macy’s (77 for web, 78 for mobile) and Staples (79 for web, 80 for mobile).
There is something to be learned here for these retailers and others like them. This means they are doing something especially well in their mobile strategy and that success can be translated to the web.
Again it comes down to the individual company to take the initiative to improve and see where these differences are and why. By using a proven methodology and a credible, reliable, valid, precise, accurate, and sensitive measurement technology they can and will improve.
To read the entire ForeSee Mobile Satisfaction Index: Retail Edition, download it here.
