A new study out yesterday says that when e-retailers shop online themselves, they find the experience barely warrants a passing grade. The report comes from online customer satisfaction firm ForeSee
Results and Internet Retailer. This year's low passing score of 63 (on a scale of 0-100) is up from last year's failing grade of 58. The survey and analysis were conducted using the American Customer
Satisfaction Index (ACSI) technology, which allows comparisons to the University of Michigan's ACSI reports on customer satisfaction among American consumers. Ordering, browsing, and general
functionality are all good but could be better, according to the report's findings. While the responders know they should be doing a better job, they seem to think they do not have the information
they need to do so. A side question in the study that asked respondents to evaluate various widely-used web metrics suggested their current tools are not at all equal to the task of telling them
whether customers are satisfied and how to build customer satisfaction. Ninety-one percent said customer satisfaction was highly important to them, however, only 25% were highly satisfied with their
current web analytics ability to gauge customer satisfaction and a full 44% gave their current analytics a failing grade. Proprietary data not released as part of the report says that companies using
newer categories of metrics that provide detailed interpretation and analysis, on the other hand, are dramatically more satisfied than the general population of insiders.