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RESEARCH, ANALYSIS & TRENDS

Epica’s new retail study reveals email beats

social media in customer engagement

Email delivers the fastest and most accurate customer sumers demand an answer within 60 minutes, yet it
service in retail, far exceeding social media and other took retailers on average over 31 hours to respond.
channels, according to new research from multichannel "For me the Eptica Study proved that, for many retail-
customer engagement software provider Eptica. ers, customer service is just talk – or actually lack of it,"
said Shep Hyken, customer experience expert and writ-
The just released 2015 Eptica Retail Multichannel Cus- er of the 2015 Eptica Retail Multichannel Customer Ex-
tomer Experience Study evaluated 500 of the biggest perience Study's foreword. "Don't promise me great
U.S. retailers in Q3 2015. Delivering excellent customer service and then take hours to respond to my requests,
experience is crucial for all of them, if they are to chal- if you respond at all. The best companies get it, re-
lenge larger players. specting their customers and their time – these are like-
ly to be the winners in the competitive retail market."
The study measured their ability to provide answers to
10 routine questions via the web, as well as their speed There were enormous gaps in performance. For exam-
and accuracy when responding to email, Twitter, Face- ple, four retailers responded on Facebook in 1 minute –
book and chat. Questions were deliberately similar to yet another four took over 20 days, with the slowest
those that consumers ask, such as around next day finally replying after 51 days. And that question con-
delivery, returns policies and order tracking. Additional- cerned next day delivery!
ly, 1,000 consumers were polled on how long they were
willing to wait for responses on these channels. On the web, one specialty retailer answered 100% of
questions – yet another managed only 10%.; 95% of
Retailers surveyed could only answer 20% of questions companies in the fowers/gifts sector successfully an-
sent via Twitter and 54% of Facebook messages - in swered an email question, compared to 50% of auto-
contrast, they replied successfully to nearly three quar- motive accessories retailers.
ters (73%) of emails received. Only around two thirds
(65%) of answers to routine questions could be found "The Eptica Retail Multichannel Customer Experience
on company websites. Study has uncovered a chasm between the best and
worst when it comes to retail customer service," said
Email responses were over 3 times faster on average Olivier Njamfa, CEO and Co-founder of Eptica. "Some
than social media but there was a clear gap between companies are delivering stellar service, yet others are
retailer performance and consumer expectations. 58% unable to deliver the multichannel performance that
of consumers would like to receive an email reply within customers expect and demand. It is therefore vital that
2 hours, yet the average response time was 7 hours laggards learn from their peers if they want to retain
and 51 minutes. customers and thrive moving forward."

85% of consumers surveyed expect an answer on Fa- Customer service on chat was fast, yet frustrating. Re-
cebook within 6 hours but retailers took an average of sponses were extremely quick (on average taking 4
over a full day to respond (over 27 hours on average). minutes and 28 seconds) but only 35% of retailers were
On Twitter the chasm was even greater – 64% of con- able to respond on the channel – despite 51% advertis-
14 Asian eMarketing - November 2015 eCommerce & Customer Lifetime
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