March 16, 2012
Retailers Among J.D. Power’s Customer Service Champions
Customer service has become even more important since the Great Recession hit, so says J.D. Power and Associates.
"Consumer expectations have heightened since the onset of the recession," Gina Pingitore, chief research officer at J.D. Power, said in a statement. "While value is important, consumers want more than simply the lowest price or a product that is just good enough. They expect a superior product that is delivered in a compelling presentation, through fast and easy-to-understand processes that are supported by responsive and concerned people. In addition, the price must be perceived as fair and competitive."
Retailers that fit that bill and made the J.D. Power 2012 Customer Service Champions list were Amazon.com, Apple, Barnes & Noble, Bass Pro Shops, Good Neighbor Pharmacy, Health Mart Pharmacy, Kohl’s, L.L. Bean, Publix, Saks Fifth Avenue and Wegmans.
Companies making the list are among the top five percent of more than 800 organizations evaluated by J.D. Power. The performance evaluation takes people, presentation, price, process and product into consideration.
The research found a direct correlation between customer satisfaction and repurchase intent rates. Among companies making the list, "focusing on satisfaction translate to double-digit improvements in performance."
According to J.D. Power, companies making its list share a number of attributes in common. These include:
- Hiring the right employees and empowering them with the authority to resolve issues that benefit customers;
- Understanding customers to "offer the right products through the right channels";
- Delivery a consistent brand experience across channels and touch points.
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Discussion Questions
Discussion Questions: What makes a customer service champion in your book? What retailers make your list of customer service champions?
Poll
It’s important to hire and train the right people with a focus on service, but the one trait that usually carries through is that their employees act like owners. They don’t worry about policies they just focus on taking care of the customer.
Two stores that are on my radar these days for customer service champions are Whole Foods and the Container Store. You can always pick a Nordstrom, but these two are demonstrating it to me when I shop.
The ability to set, meet and exceed expectations. Customer service for low price leader is about product availability and fast checkout, while a full service retailer is about product selection, employee knowledge, ease of returns etc. Apple store for me is a customer service champion for their segment of consumer electronics, combination of product availability and fast checkout of a low price leader downstaris for a grab and go, with the employee knowledge and service with their genius bar and education upstairs.
I’m delighted to hear confirmation that price is not the best diffentiator, which will hopefully stop the “race to the bottom.”
It also puts some of the “showrooming” fears to rest.
A customer service champion is a retailer that executes on its brand promise. I don’t think it’s any more complicated than that.
A customer service champion is one that never gives up on you AFTER the sale.
My list of champions includes L.L.Bean from the list above, and I would add Cabelas, Country Home Products (the DR people) and Home Depot.
Yep, Home Depot. The in-store experience has been much maligned lately, in my opinion largely by people shopping DIY stores who aren’t quite as “DIY” as they thought they were. Regardless, I have had tremendous experiences with Home Depot on a number of occasions AFTER the sale — even when the problem was really my fault.
It is quite encouraging to read an article about service excellence. Most of the companies on the list are not surprising and I agree with the main 3 points of excellence in hiring practices, matching products to consumer needs and consistent brand delivery across channels. These are the foundations of service and a “cost of entry” for those wishing to have engaged customers.
The message here is how easy it is to deliver excellence — and yet how few actually deliver. It is also a message of reduced consumer expectations because really, the levels of service in most of these establishments is only ‘Okay’ with a few notable exceptions. There really is no excuse to offer inferior service.
Congratulations to the retailers that made the list! I would argue that the blanket statements form J.D. Power on consumer expectations are overly generalized. While all retailers strive for some level of “customer service” the reality is that there is a cost for providing it and the consumers expectations and willingness to pay (how much for what level of service) varies quite a bit across retailers and retail segments.
Sometimes consumers really do want “the lowest price or a product that is just good enough” and there are a lot of retailers that make a lot of money delivering this value proposition.
Customer service is one of the reasons I shop and eat at certain places on a regular basis. There is nothing worse than paying for a good meal in a nice restaurant, only to have really lousy service. I won’t go back, and many others won’t either. You can’t cover all bases, but a smile and a genuine friendly response to any issue, is a winner in my book.
Store owners of all sizes understand this, and try to put their best folks on the sales floor, where those friendly smiles lead to better profits.
I must be an exception as my shopping experiences in Apple stores have all been terrible … as much as I like the store feel and the products.
I can see lots of the right ingredients for great service, but it has never come together for me. In my last visit I endured an hour wait in a busy but not crazy-busy store with 3 of my kids before I got service because they didn’t follow their own very clever system for tracking the sequence of customers to serve.
Guess I’m an outlier … and yes a bitter one! So Apple’s brick’s and mortar stores are now a browse-only experience for me.
Customer service champions focus on delivering a good shopping experience — enough knowledgeable staff who are available to direct you, help locate products, fast checkout, and good quality products that are fairly priced. My list includes Trader Joe’s — always pleasant people around to assist you. The new products are fun, the packaging easy to read and understand, with good value for your purchases.
Surprised to see no specific “Supermarket” industry segment, and then also only two chains listed under “Retail”: Publix and Wegmans. “Retail” encompasses too wide a field for the study segment, in our opinion. Also, there are U.S. consumers that rarely, if any time, shop at the outlets listed, whereas most shop at supermarkets.
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It’s important to hire and train the right people with a focus on service, but the one trait that usually carries through is that their employees act like owners. They don’t worry about policies they just focus on taking care of the customer.
Two stores that are on my radar these days for customer service champions are Whole Foods and the Container Store. You can always pick a Nordstrom, but these two are demonstrating it to me when I shop.
The ability to set, meet and exceed expectations. Customer service for low price leader is about product availability and fast checkout, while a full service retailer is about product selection, employee knowledge, ease of returns etc. Apple store for me is a customer service champion for their segment of consumer electronics, combination of product availability and fast checkout of a low price leader downstaris for a grab and go, with the employee knowledge and service with their genius bar and education upstairs.
I’m delighted to hear confirmation that price is not the best diffentiator, which will hopefully stop the “race to the bottom.”
It also puts some of the “showrooming” fears to rest.
A customer service champion is a retailer that executes on its brand promise. I don’t think it’s any more complicated than that.
A customer service champion is one that never gives up on you AFTER the sale.
My list of champions includes L.L.Bean from the list above, and I would add Cabelas, Country Home Products (the DR people) and Home Depot.
Yep, Home Depot. The in-store experience has been much maligned lately, in my opinion largely by people shopping DIY stores who aren’t quite as “DIY” as they thought they were. Regardless, I have had tremendous experiences with Home Depot on a number of occasions AFTER the sale — even when the problem was really my fault.
It is quite encouraging to read an article about service excellence. Most of the companies on the list are not surprising and I agree with the main 3 points of excellence in hiring practices, matching products to consumer needs and consistent brand delivery across channels. These are the foundations of service and a “cost of entry” for those wishing to have engaged customers.
The message here is how easy it is to deliver excellence — and yet how few actually deliver. It is also a message of reduced consumer expectations because really, the levels of service in most of these establishments is only ‘Okay’ with a few notable exceptions. There really is no excuse to offer inferior service.
Congratulations to the retailers that made the list! I would argue that the blanket statements form J.D. Power on consumer expectations are overly generalized. While all retailers strive for some level of “customer service” the reality is that there is a cost for providing it and the consumers expectations and willingness to pay (how much for what level of service) varies quite a bit across retailers and retail segments.
Sometimes consumers really do want “the lowest price or a product that is just good enough” and there are a lot of retailers that make a lot of money delivering this value proposition.
Customer service is one of the reasons I shop and eat at certain places on a regular basis. There is nothing worse than paying for a good meal in a nice restaurant, only to have really lousy service. I won’t go back, and many others won’t either. You can’t cover all bases, but a smile and a genuine friendly response to any issue, is a winner in my book.
Store owners of all sizes understand this, and try to put their best folks on the sales floor, where those friendly smiles lead to better profits.
I must be an exception as my shopping experiences in Apple stores have all been terrible … as much as I like the store feel and the products.
I can see lots of the right ingredients for great service, but it has never come together for me. In my last visit I endured an hour wait in a busy but not crazy-busy store with 3 of my kids before I got service because they didn’t follow their own very clever system for tracking the sequence of customers to serve.
Guess I’m an outlier … and yes a bitter one! So Apple’s brick’s and mortar stores are now a browse-only experience for me.
Customer service champions focus on delivering a good shopping experience — enough knowledgeable staff who are available to direct you, help locate products, fast checkout, and good quality products that are fairly priced. My list includes Trader Joe’s — always pleasant people around to assist you. The new products are fun, the packaging easy to read and understand, with good value for your purchases.
Surprised to see no specific “Supermarket” industry segment, and then also only two chains listed under “Retail”: Publix and Wegmans. “Retail” encompasses too wide a field for the study segment, in our opinion. Also, there are U.S. consumers that rarely, if any time, shop at the outlets listed, whereas most shop at supermarkets.