Airline, Travel and Leisure Firms Ranked on How They Treat Online Customers in Spring 2004 Online Customer Respect Study.Business Editors BELLEVUE Bellevue (bĕl`vy  ).1 City (1990 pop. 30,982), Sarpy co., E Nebr., a suburb of Omaha, on the Missouri River; inc. 1855. , Wash.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 26, 2004 25 Percent Share Personal Data With Third Parties Without Permission; 77 Percent of Online Forms Not Easy to Use by Those With Disabilities The Customer Respect Group, an international research and consulting firm Noun 1. consulting firm - a firm of experts providing professional advice to an organization for a fee consulting company business firm, firm, house - the members of a business organization that owns or operates one or more establishments; "he worked for a that focuses on how corporations treat their customers online, today released the results of its Spring 2004 Online Customer Respect Study of 36 airline, travel and leisure firms that rank among the countries largest 1000 companies. Overall, Orbitz This article is about the online travel agency. For the soft drink, see Orbitz (soft drink). Orbitz, Inc. is an Internet travel company headquartered in Chicago. and Hotwire Hotwire can mean one of several things:
BTI Boyce Thompson Institute BTI British American Tobacco (stock symbol) BTI Boston Theological Institute Bti Bacillus Thuringiensis Israelensis BTI BioTechnology Institute BTI Binding Tariff Information scored lowest. Northwest Airlines ranked first among airlines, while Southwest Airlines This article is about the American airline. For the former Japanese airline, see Japan Transocean Air. For the British airline, see Air Southwest. Southwest Airlines Co. ranked last. Marriott International Marriott International, Inc. (NYSE: MAR) is a worldwide operator and franchisor of a range of value and luxury hotels and related lodging facilities. Marriott currently has 2,300 accommodation properties in North America alone. scored highest among hotels/resorts, while Trump Hotels & Casino casino or cassino (both: kəsē`nō). 1 Card game played with a full deck by two to four players. Its origins are obscure though it probably traces back to the Italian game of Scopa. Resorts scored lowest. And GetThere bested Sabre Airline Solutions Sabre Airline Solutions is a subsidiary of Sabre Holdings. The main product of Sabre Airline Solutions is the SabreSonic system. This provides departure control, reservations, and, inventory management. in the travel solutions category. The study is the only one to bring objective measure to the analysis of corporate performance from an online customer's perspective. It assigns Individuals to whom property is, will, or may be transferred by conveyance, will, Descent and Distribution, or statute; assignees. The term assigns is often found in deeds; for example, "heirs, administrators, and assigns to denote the assignable nature of a Customer Respect Index (CRI CRI constant-rate infusion. (TM)) 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 in-depth adj. Detailed; thorough: an in-depth study. in-depth Adjective detailed or thorough: an in-depth analysis analysis and independent measure of a customer's online experience when interacting with companies via the Internet Internet Publicly accessible computer network connecting many smaller networks from around the world. It grew out of a U.S. Defense Department program called ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network), established in 1969 with connections between computers at the . By interviewing a representative 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 (1) The quality of being able to see through a material. The terms transparency and translucency are often used synonymously; however, transparent would technically mean "seeing through clear glass," while translucent would mean "seeing through frosted glass." See alpha blending. (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 con·tin·u·al adj. 1. Recurring regularly or frequently: the continual need to pay the mortgage. 2. 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. Select Sector Comparisons In related research -- the Customer Respect Net Impact Study 2004 -- 54 percent of users who had abandoned Web sites in the previous three months cited a lack of simplicity as the main reason why they did so, with 70 percent admitting that they would go to a competitor if a Web site was difficult to use. In this survey, companies achieved a high score for Simplicity. However, almost all of the companies have very heavy Web pages that make it difficult for individuals with slow connections to navigate (1) "Surfing the Web." To move from page to page on the Web. (2) To move through the menu structure in a software application. . In the area of Transparency, scores for the sector were excellent. This shows that airline, travel and leisure firms endeavor to explain their policies fully and clearly. On the other hand, Responsiveness was frequently poor. Of the companies surveyed, nine percent did not reply to any of the inquiries submitted. Of the inquiries sent, the responses to 29 percent took more than two days to arrive. In the Customer Respect Net Impact Study 2004, 72 percent of those surveyed said that they would wait between one hour and one day for a response. In the area of Principles, a shocking 25 percent of the airline, travel and leisure firms share customers' data with business partners without seeking permission and 13 percent share data with affiliates. In that same area, researchers found that 77 percent of online forms were not easy to use by those with disabilities. Research indicates that firms that don't don't 1. Contraction of do not. 2. Nonstandard Contraction of does not. n. A statement of what should not be done: a list of the dos and don'ts. consider those with disabilities could be preventing up to 20 percent of the population from doing business with them. "The net of this survey is that while airline, travel and leisure firms are doing well in several areas, they still have room for improvement in many others, particularly in Responsiveness and Principles," said Roger Fairchild Roger Fairchild was a Republican politician from Idaho active in the 1980s and early 1990s. He was the Republican nominee for Governor of Idaho in 1990. Fairchild was decisively defeated by the Democratic incumbent, Cecil D. Andrus, winning in only one of Idaho's 44 counties. , president of The Customer Respect Group. "The bottom line is that more than 10 percent of all financial transactions in the U.S. are initiated on the Web and for many of these sector firms it's it's 1. Contraction of it is. 2. Contraction of it has. See Usage Note at its. it's it is or it has it's be ~have significantly higher - up to 100 percent. There's no doubt that making positive changes to their sites can have an enormous financial impact for them by improving sales and customer retention." The overall average for all airline, travel and leisure companies was 6.2. Beyond these scores, the report conveys, in great detail, improvement opportunities for each company. The sector's Spring 2004 ranking is as follows: Airline Name Overall ---------------------------------------------- Northwest Airlines Corporation 7.8 Spirit Airlines 7.5 Alaska Air Group, Inc. 7.4 ATA Airlines, Inc 7.3 American Airlines 7.0 Delta Air Lines, Inc. 7.0 JetBlue Airways 7.0 US Airways Group, Inc. 7.0 Continental Airlines, Inc. 6.8 UAL Corporation 6.3 America West Holdings Corp. 6.2 Southwest Airlines 5.2 ---------------------------------------------- Airline Average 6.9 Travel Firm Name Overall ---------------------------------------------- Orbitz 8.3 Hotwire 8.3 Expedia 8.2 Priceline 8.1 Travelocity 7.3 Cheaptickets.com 7.0 Carlson Wagonlit 6.4 Hotels.com 5.2 WorldTravel BTI 2.8 ---------------------------------------------- Travel Firm Average 6.8 Hotel/Resort Name Overall ---------------------------------------------- Marriott International, Inc. 7.8 Hyatt Hotels & Resorts 6.9 Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc. 6.4 Radisson Hotels & Resorts 6.1 Caesars Entertainment, Inc. 6.0 Harrah's Entertainment, Inc. 5.6 Hilton Hotels 5.0 Wyndham Hotels & Resorts 4.9 MGM Mirage 4.2 Mandalay Resort Group 4.1 Boyd Gaming Corporation 3.9 Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts, Inc. 2.9 ---------------------------------------------- Hotel/Resort Average 5.3 Travel Solution Firm Overall ---------------------------------------------- GetThere 5.1 Sabre Airline Solutions 5.0 ---------------------------------------------- Travel Solution Average 5.1 Other findings for firms in the overall Airline, Travel and Leisure firm sector include the following: -- Surveyed firms receive the best overall rating (CRI: 7.5) for Transparency and the worst (CRI: 4.5) for Responsiveness. -- Some nine percent of firms did not respond to any online inquiries. -- 83 percent responded to all inquiries. Of these, 54 percent responded within 24 hours, 17 percent responded within 48 hours and 29 percent responded after two days. -- Eight percent of firms responded to half of the inquiries received. Of these, 67 percent responded within 24 hours and 33 percent responded within 48 hours. -- Some 44 percent of all sector firms use Autoresponder A mail utility that automatically sends a reply to an e-mail message. Autoresponders are used to send back boilerplate information on a topic without having the requester do anything more than e-mail a particular address. They are also used to send a confirmation that the message has been received. technology, in which emails are automatically sent to users to confirm the receipt of their inquiry and let them know when they should expect a response. Of these, all followed up with a full response although 62 percent of those that cited a timeframe for responding took longer than promised. -- Some 86 percent of companies provide email forms for online inquiries, six percent provide email addresses See Internet address. and 8 percent provide no online contact methods. -- 91 percent of sector firms have privacy policies on their sites explaining how customers' personal data is being used. Of those that do, six percent need to be more explicit about how they use personal data, 56 percent do not collect data or use collected data only for internal purposes, 13 percent share data with affiliates or subsidiaries and 25 percent share data without permission from users. -- Some 91 percent use cookie cookie File or part of a file put on a Web user's hard disk by a Web site. Cookies are used to store registration data, to make it possible to customize information for visitors to a Web site, to target Web advertising, and to keep track of the products a user wishes to technology. Of these, 28 percent provide a full explanation about what advantage they provide the user and what data they hold, while 16 percent provide a full explanation on how to disable To turn off; deactivate. See disabled. them. -- 77 percent of companies provide forms that can't be easily used by those with disabilities. How to Order Each company and industry is researched and analyzed an·a·lyze tr.v. an·a·lyzed, an·a·lyz·ing, an·a·lyz·es 1. To examine methodically by separating into parts and studying their interrelations. 2. Chemistry To make a chemical analysis of. 3. twice annually. Subscribers to Customer Respect Online receive: -- Industry-specific key findings, analysis and editorials for one-or-more subscribed industry reports -- Dynamic league tables for CRI and each CRI sub-index scoring for all companies -- CRI report cards for each company covered in that report -- Detailed own-company confidential report -- Best practice guidelines practice guidelines Medical practice A set of recommendations for Pt management that identifies a specific or range of range of management strategies. See Peer review organization, Practice standards. Cf 'Cookbook' medicine. , practical customer respect examples -- Analysis tools for head-to-head head-to-head adv. & adj. 1. In direct confrontation or conflict at close quarters: The two brothers went at it head-to-head. It was a head-to-head contest all the way. 2. and multi-company comparisons with drill-down to sub-indices detail -- Annual Fortune 100 CRI Report (annual subscribers only) Customer Respect Online is available in three different subscription levels to suit specific requirements: -- Immediate Action: Includes one research cycle, one single industry report, one company confidential report, three months of online access to CRO for $5,000. -- Continuous Improvement: Includes two research cycles, two single industry reports, two company confidential reports, 12 months of CRO access, Fortune 100 CRI Report and data for $15,000. -- Portfolio Perspective: Includes two research cycles, all industry reports, four company confidential reports, 12 months of CRO access, Fortune 100 CRI Report and data for $25,000. Companies can obtain additional information by visiting the Web site, www.CustomerRespect.com, calling 425-454-4151 or emailing info@customerrespect.com. About The Customer Respect Group The Customer Respect Group is an international research and consulting firm that uses its Customer Respect Index (CRI(TM)) methodology to help companies improve how they treat their customers online. It provides leadership in the objective and scientific measurement of a customer's online experience. Many of the largest U.S. companies have already adopted the CRI methodology to improve online customer satisfaction and loyalty. The Customer Respect Group is headquartered in Bellevue, WA. For additional information, visit www.customerrespect.com. All companies and products listed herein are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders. |
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