In some rare good news for UK retailers it has been revealed that they come out on top of other industries when it comes to customer experience.

A new piece of research from Forrester suggests that retailers are leaps and bounds ahead of other consumer-focused companies when it comes to the impression consumers have of them.

While many retailers beat themselves up about improving their online and multichannel experience particularly, the feeling among consumers is that retailers are doing much better than other organisations that they deal with.

Forrester quizzed more than 1,000 consumers on their interactions with a variety of companies in five industries – retailers, retail banks, mobile providers, internet service providers and utility companies. It asked them how useful and enjoyable consumers’ interactions were with the companies and how easy they were to work with.

Coming out on top was Play.com with a customer experience index score that Forrester rates as excellent. Not far behind was Amazon UK. In fact, nine of the top 10 companies were retailers, with Lloyds TSB at number 8 in the rankings the only exception.

In particular, Play.com had an ease-of-use rating of 95 per cent, even though it is part way through a project to make its site easier to use.

Forrester says that other industries should be learning lessons from retailers and trying to emulate the industry’s best practice.

In particular, it believes companies need to incorporate the voice of the customer when making key decisions. And this makes some sense of why particular retailers did so well in the index.

After all, Play.com and Amazon are both able to collect significant amounts of data on their customers because they are internet-only retailers. Others that scored highly, such as Tesco/Tesco Direct and John Lewis are both known for their ability to give their respective customers what they want.

In particular, Forrester highlights relationship tracking, interaction monitoring and continuous listening as three of the activities consumer-focused firms should engage in.

Customers have given retailers the thumbs up during these difficult trading times; the message back to them must be that retailers are still hearing what they are saying.

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