Gap, Overstock Biggest Losers in Online Customer Satisfaction

Dec. 28, 2011 — -- With the end of the holiday season at hand, Gap.com and Overstock.com ranked at the bottom of a survey of customer satisfaction with online retailers. Amazon topped the list with previous winner, Netflix, falling down after a customer service blunder earlier this year.

Analytics company Foresee on Wednesday released the seventh annual results of its ForeSee Holiday Study.

Amazon gained two points to score 88 on the study's 100-point scale. Netflix fell 7 points to a score of 79. The movie-rental company lost 800,000 members of about 20 million after it announced a new pricing plan and streaming service in October. Netflix's stock price also took a tumble. The company and CEO Reed Hastings has since canceled its plans and apologized to customers.

The survey results are based on more than 8,500 responses from visitors to the top 40 e-retail websites according to sales revenue as reported by Internet Retailer's Top 500 Guide.

In addition to Netflix, both Gap.com and Overstock.com had the largest declines in satisfaction, leaving them with scores at the bottom of the list. Gap.com fell 6 percent to a score of 73. Overstock.com was down 5 percent to 72.

Amazon, Gap and Netflix did not return a request for comment. Overstock declined to comment about the survey.

The largest gains in satisfaction went to TigerDirect.com, up 8 percent to 79, and JC Penney, up 6 percent to 83. The latter named Ron Johnson, former head of Apple's retail operations, as JC Penney CEO in June.

"Customer satisfaction is a leading indicator of consumer spending, and the bump in the Index is good news for online retailers," Larry Freed, president and CEO of ForeSee, said in a statement. "Unemployment is down, consumer confidence is up, and holiday retail sales are up from last year. Improved customer satisfaction suggests the good news may continue into the new year."