Navigating the amazon

I was reading in WARC News this morning that amazon is among the online retailers receiving the highest satisfaction scores from UK consumers.

This is according to a recent survey from ForeSee who surveyed almost 10,000 respondents, and found that "highly satisfied" shoppers registered a 57% improvement in their commitment to specific retailers.

This is obviously great for online retail and I'm personally not surprised that amazon do so well. In the early days of online I found it difficult to accept that there was no telephone support but the e-mail system amazon have in place as well as direct order tracking via the Post Office is great and effective. Or perhaps it is just that like my fellow netizens I am more used to and confident in a system that has finally clicked with me!

John Lewis also do well in the ForeSee survey and I was again reminded of amazon when thinking of the 'never knowingly undersold' slogan. Having bought an item from amazon - and yes it arrived without delay - I got a follow-up e-mail to say that it had subsequently been reduced online and they had paid an amount equivalent to the saving directly back to my credit card. I didn't know about the price reduction so didn't need to ask and certainly didn't need to 'make a claim' with all the bureaucratic red tape that phrase conjures up.

If you run a transparent operation online you have nowhere to hide and it never gets personal. I used to think that the lack of a real person in retail sales was a problem but, as ForeSee are demonstrating, it's actually its biggest advantage.