The study brings an objective measure to the analysis of corporate performance from an online customer's perspective. It assigns a Customer Respect Index (CRI) rating to each company on a scale of 0 to 10, with 10 being the highest achievable score. The Customer Respect Index is a qualitative and quantitative in-depth analysis and independent measure of a customer's online experience when interacting with companies via the Internet.
By interviewing a sample of the adult Internet population, and by analyzing more than 1000 Web sites across a spectrum of industries in detail, the Customer Respect Group has determined the attributes that combine to create the entire online customer experience. These attributes have been grouped together and measured as indicators of simplicity (ease of navigation), responsiveness (quick and thorough responses to inquiries), privacy (respects customer privacy), attitude (customer-focus of site), transparency (open and honest policies) and principles (values and respects customer data). Combined they measure a company's overall Customer Respect.
The Customer Respect Group continually enhances its methodology by expanding the list of attributes researched and reported on. Recently, the firm expanded that list to include respect for individuals with disabilities. In addition, this research was conducted based on the computer products and services-specific methodology introduced this past summer.
Summary of results and comparisons
The industry did score .5 points higher than the Fortune 100 group in both transparency and privacy, possibly as a result of increasing user concerns in these areas.
The Online Privacy Protection Act of 2003, which was made law in California on July 1, 2004, has serious implications for any commercial Web sites without privacy policies that may have visitors from that state. Even so, three companies - Brightpoint, Graybar Electric and Safeguard Scientifics - do not provide privacy policies for their site visitors.
"These results provide much food for thought," said Terry Golesworthy, president of The Customer Respect Group. "On one hand, we were pleased to see that privacy policies were generally clear, explicit and easy to read. This generally helps to allay concerns about what Web sites are doing with personal data. On the other hand, more than 50 percent of sites say they share personal data without users' explicit permission. This should concern high-tech firms greatly, since research shows that more than half of Americans state that protecting personal information is their greatest concern when online. This concern, as the biggest single issue, jumps to fully two-thirds of Web users when they are considering making an online purchase. Clearly the practice of sharing data without permission will increasingly have a major impact on online revenue."
The report conveys in great detail improvement opportunities for each company. Some of the overall findings include:
- 95 percent of sector firms have privacy policies on their sites explaining how customers' personal data is being used. Of those that do, 11 percent need to be more explicit about how they use personal data, 52 percent do not collect data or use collected data only for internal purposes, 15 percent share data with affiliates or subsidiaries and 22 percent share data with business partners without permission from users.
- Some 90 of surveyed firms use cookie technology. Of these, 21 percent provide a full explanation about what advantage they provide the user and what data they hold, while 18 percent provide a full explanation on how to disable them.
