Online retailers are a vital part of the fashion industry within the UK, boasting millions of pounds in online sales. Many people are opting for the convenience of shopping online rather than in-store, so it is important that fashion retailers realise that customer experience still matters online. In fact, it may be more challenging to create good customer experiences without the help of face-to-face engagement, meaning that brands must listen to their customers in order to create a strong brand image.
We analysed over 6,000 mentions of five of the leading online fashion retailers using our customer experience analytics tool Emotics. The analysis provides us a deeper insight into who provides the best customer experience. The data is assessed across 8 emotion indexes to understand how customers feel about the brands, and the themes that are driving key emotions.
Our analysis showed that New Look came out on top with customers talking with more positive emotions than with the other retailers. Topshop placed second, followed by ASOS in third and Boohoo in fourth position. Zara came in last in our analysis, which may come as a surprise for some, so let’s take a deeper look at the analysis.
New Look won first place in our analysis with an Adorescore of 45, and they come out top as providing the best customer experience. Emotions related to joy were high due to mentions of “fantastic service” and messages thanking the customer service team. Rapid responses from New Look’s online customer service team improved customer’s interactions with the brand as shown through increased levels of trust.
https://twitter.com/rsimpson11/status/886891726643875840
https://twitter.com/nikki_plant86/status/881926097314746368
Responsive and helpful customer service teams greatly improve customer interactions with the brand online and as a result promotes customer loyalty which help to develop an overall positive brand image.
In second place is Topshop who achieved an overall Adorescore of 42. Trust levels were increased by mentions of “Thanks Topshop” whilst joy was driven by mentions of “VIP shipping”.
@TopshopHelp when you just discover you have free VIP shipping for the rest of the year and you didn't know anything about it 🙂 pic.twitter.com/UuFhlWdZtl
— Sarah Beale (@sarahharrison86) June 2, 2017
Benefits and incentives such as free VIP shipping are a great way to improve customer experience. Customers who are rewarded for their loyalty to the brand are more likely to become brand advocates and share their positive experiences online which is emphasised in Topshop winning second place in our analysis.
ASOS came in at third place with an Adorescore of 36. High levels of trust and joy were driven by ASOS’s good discounts and their latest decision to stop airbrushing their bikini models. This promotion of positive female body image has even caught the attention of celebrity influencers such as Ella Henderson. This celebrity endorsement improves brand awareness, the high trust proves that customers are more responsive to people they admire, such as celebrity influencers which overall creates a better customer experience.
This makes me so happy… Because flaws are ok 👌🏼@ASOS x x. E https://t.co/YNrrqHmoQ1
— Ella Henderson ✨ (@EllaHenderson) July 18, 2017
However ASOS have fallen down in their customer experience with high amounts of sadness driven due to their long delays for refunds to be processed. Customer frustration as a result of these delays has lead to increased anger towards the brand.
@ASOS_HeretoHelp is there a delay in processing refunds. Sent an item back over a week ago and no email to say you got it yet 😓
— Krissi (@krissisimmons) July 13, 2017
ASOS have responded to this issue by posting a pinned tweet on their customer service twitter page to highlight that they are aware of the problem and are working to resolve it.
https://twitter.com/ASOS_HeretoHelp/status/879721475078533120
In fourth place were Boohoo with an Adorescore of 30. Increased levels of sadness and disgust were caused by unhelpful staff and poor customer service. Boohoo’s lack of response towards these complaints further elevated feelings of anger.
Still waiting for a response, pretty poor customer service tbh really disappointed as I'm a loyal customer!
— Sian DeCiantis (@siansphotograph) June 12, 2017
The poor quality of items was another strong driver of anger, as customer experience was lowered by their purchases failing to meet their expectations.
https://twitter.com/Jade_smith1x/status/856143577784692737
Zara ranked at the bottom of our analysis with an Adorescore of 24. High emotion levels of anger were driven by mentions of “worst service”. Customers have been in contact with customer services with problems such as waiting on refunds, unhelpful advice to customers and delayed response all add up to result in a bad customer experience.
https://twitter.com/heylush/status/887535282916077568
Emotions of sadness and disgust were increased with mentions of “never got my package”. Zara further failed to deliver good customer experiences when they sent customers packages with the wrong or missing items, resulting in high levels of negative emotions like disgust and anger towards the brand which are harmful to Zara’s overall brand representation.
I was so excited to open my package from @ZARA just to find out they sent me the wrong thing…. @ZARA_Care
— Kayla “KB” Bryant (@kayxbryant) April 27, 2017
https://twitter.com/nidhisurana/status/885356914703425536
The results show that New Look are the winners, providing the best customer experience with a high Adorescore driven by emotions of joy and trust, while Boohoo and Zara fall short in their customer service delivery due to poor quality items, missing packages and long wait times for refunds. When customer experience is done right it can be a huge benefit to the company by their customers becoming advocates of the brand.
At Adoreboard our emotional analysis tool Emotics provides a means for measuring emotional intensity around customer experiences, in order to discover the main themes driving these emotions and provide detailed customer insights to actively improve customer experience.
