Finalists Announced for 2016 Excellence in Customer Experience Awards
Cincinnati, OH (PRWEB) March 15, 2016 -- Multichannel Merchant has announced finalists for the annual Excellence in Customer Experience Awards, being presented on April 14 in a luncheon ceremony at the annual Operations Summit in Cincinnati, OH. The awards were established to recognize retailers at the cutting edge of delivery, packaging, returns, customer experience and innovation.
“To their customers, these companies are superheroes, delivering a superior experience from the order to the return,” said Ellen Shannon, chief content director and publisher at Multichannel Merchant.
Multichannel Merchant has been closely following the rapid growth of omnichannel retail, including the challenges of increasingly complex order fulfillment and inventory management across physical and digital channels, and the ever-expanding variety of delivery options. With this comes a host of customer communications requirements – all presenting opportunities to wow buyers and keep them coming back.
The categories and finalists this year includes:
- Best Packaging Finalists: Bath & Body Works, Birchbox, Duluth Trading, Macy’s
- Best Shipping & Delivery Experience Finalists: Apple, Fossil, Sunglass Hut, Walgreens
- Excellence in Brand Communication Finalists: Levi Strauss, The Limited, Nine West, Walt Disney
- Best Customer Returns Experience Finalists: Bonobos, Fossil, Lowe’s, Nordstrom
- Customer Experience Leader Award: Bonobos, Coach, Fossil, Lowe’s
There will also be a Retail Innovator of the Year award presented to a company identified as a continual innovator, as evidenced by cutting edge developments introduced by the company.
Data from eBay Enterprise + Innotrac’s SmartHub benchmarking study was used to identify the top performers in each of the award categories. Using SmartHub, all finalists were chosen based on data collected during the company’s test ordering process.
“In the beginning, the test order data we collected was used in sales conversations – in fact over time it became a larger focus in those conversations. Now it has grown into a full study of the ecommerce industry using a standardized process. We have grown from ordering from 50 leading online retailers seven times a year, to ordering from more than 280.” said Brad Higgs, manager of SmartHub. “This year we are introducing our subscription service offering so retailers can have access to our unique data set.”
Higgs said each order is evaluated on 81 data points, from the ordering process to returns and refunds, and more than 1,700 packages were processed in 2015. The SmartHub team looks at everything from order arrival time to package condition and who delivers it, as well as email communication received before and after its arrival as well.
“We want to offer our congratulations to all the 2016 finalists for continuing to explore new ways of delivering consistent excellence across all facets of the customer experience,” Shannon said. “In the process they’re increasing loyalty and driving sales, raising the bar on retail innovation and inspiring others to do so as well.”
SmartHub and Global Response are sponsors of the 2016 Excellence in Customer Experience Awards.
About the Operations Summit
Now in its fifth year, the Operations Summit helps merchants boost productivity, cut costs and increase customer satisfaction by providing a gathering place for operations leaders to exchange ideas, tour leading DTC distribution centers and get in-depth training. It is the only conference exclusively devoted to direct-to-customer operations and fulfillment. Operations Summit, along with the co-located Growing Global conference, covers omnichannel, logistics, customer care, warehousing, order management, global operations, cross-border selling, transportation, returns and fraud prevention.
About Multichannel Merchant
Multichannel Merchant, producer of the Operations Summit, reaches management, marketing and operations at companies that sell merchandise through multiple channels—including e-commerce and catalog. Multichannel Merchant delivers research, executive summaries, technology and supplier comparisons, tip sheets, news and resource information to help companies sell & deliver products direct-to-customer.
John Gibb, Access Intelligence, +1 (203) 899-8435, [email protected]
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