Verint Experience Index Urges Importance of Exceptional Digital Presence for Retailers

In the contact center, every call, every chat, every tweet, every interaction matters. Each and every time an agent engages with a customer, it is an opportunity to add another loyal customer, or enable a negative experience that lends itself to loss of business and a dip in NPS.

This week, the Verint Experience Index: Retail was unveiled. The report takes a deep dive in customer satisfaction rankings of 25 prominent retailers, including NPS score as well as data and key trends impacting the omnichannel retail environment from the responses of over 6,000 shoppers.

I’ll let you dig into the results, but allow me to offer a few highlights. The report quantifies four components to the digital experience – navigation, look and feel, site performance and site information. Three brands that stood out include Amazon (top marks on all four components), Target (News - Alert) and Publix.

Some 74 percent of respondents noted a great experience leads to the likelihood-to-recommend-the-brand score, in addition to an 85 percent higher likelihood-to-recommend-the-site score. Nearly 50 percent of those surveyed noted a lack of resources online as the reason for calling the contact center – more specifically, unsuccessfully attempting a transaction digitally. This pitfall is a path to customer frustration, and steals the one thing a customer can never get back, their time.

“In this case, time is money, as retailers run the risk of customers taking their business elsewhere. What’s more, retailers also see diminished returns on the investments they’ve made in their websites and digital engagement platforms while having to increase spending in the contact center,” says Verint’s (News - Alert) Nancy Treaster, SVP and general manager, strategic operations. “According to our Index, by?converting just one-quarter of those callers to a successful digital self-service journey, retailers could save over $1 million for every 1 million calls.”

Customer experience is something no business can ignore. Retailers are faced with a highly competitive, very crowded landscape that is reliant on letting their customer engagement levels lead to referrals, loyalty and bottom line results.

Edited by Maurice Nagle