Amazon Hangs Tough in Satisfaction Stats - Page 2

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Amazon and Netflix were the only two e-commerce sites that scored above an 80, which is generally considered the threshold for excellence by the ACSI. The rest of the industry wasn't so successful, Freed said.

"Only two of the 40 measured e-tailers scored above 80, and more than a quarter scored 70 or below," he said in a statement. "Nearly 40 percent saw satisfaction drop year-over-year. That's just not playing to win in this economy."

Spokespeople from Shop.org, an e-tailer industry association, did not return requests for comment by press time.

Season's top gainers and largest drop-offs

Among the big losers in customer satisfaction were CircuitCity.com, Gap.com and HSN.com, all of which posted an index of 69 points. Each saw declines in their indexes, ranging from a drop of four points for CircuitCity.com to a seven-point fall for HSN.com.

It's not all bad news, however. Several retailers managed to improve their rankings compared to last year's survey.

HP came away with the title of most improved e-tailer. The PC giant's online store, HP.com, saw a 7 percent increase in customer satisfaction, raising its score to 79.

WalMart.com also fared well, with a 5 percent spike in customer satisfaction that lifted its rating to 78. Staples.com and Target.com also saw lifts in customer satisfaction of 6 percent (to a score of 77) and 4 percent (to 75) respectively.

Playing to win

How should retailers have tried to boost their customer satisfaction?

Despite widespread discounting among online and offline retailers this season, it's not clear whether slashing prices is a reliable way to attract loyal buyers.

"Consumers aren't all that happy with the prices that they pay, but [discounts] are going to have minimal impact in changing their purchasing behavior," Freed told InternetNews.com.

Instead, retailers may experience a downside of the discounting: It may be hard for many to claw their way back to higher margins.

"Consumers are getting trained to expect the free shipping and the promotions," Freed added. "I think there's a long-term impact there."

There's another reason why discounting isn't necessarily the answer to improving satisfaction. He added that ForeSee has found that price has typically has a lower impact on satisfaction do than the other factors it ranks -- merchandise, content and functionality. And while the current tough spending climate makes price more important to shoppers, it's really only a key criteria for some retailers.

"Companies like Wal-Mart have really taken advantage of that -- we saw big increases in their score this time around, and that's attributed to their prices," he said. But overall, discounting has had "a bit of a dampening effect. In spite of the difficult economy, in spite of lighter wallets and pocketbooks ... satisfaction at the aggregate level kind of held its own."