Holiday Roundup: Email beats social, shoppers don’t like the creep

We begin with the 2015 Eptica Retail Multichannel Customer Experience Survey which finds that retailers are only answering about 20% of customer queries sent via social media, but they answer nearly three-quarters (73%) of emails received.

“For me the Eptica Study proved that, for many retailers, customer service is just talk – or actually lack of it,” said Shep Hyken, customer experience expert and writer of the 2015 Eptica Retail Multichannel Customer Experience Study’s foreword. “Don’t promise me great service and then take hours to respond to my requests, if you respond at all. The best companies get it, respecting their customers and their time – these are likely to be the winners in the competitive retail market.”

Emails are also answered faster that social requests according to the report. As for consumers, more than half say they’d like to get answers to their emails within 2 hours and their social requests within 51 minutes.

Meanwhile, new data out from RichRelevance finds consumers are tired of the Christmas creep – the act of stores putting out holiday decorations, gifts and other items out before Black Friday. All, that is, except Millennials. According to the RichRelevance survey Millennial shoppers are more tolerant of the creep.

Some interesting findings from the report include:

• 38% of those surveyed say they hate the practice of stores opening on Thanksgiving, 27% ‘dislike’ the practice
• 6 in 10 say they won’t shop Black Friday if they shop in the same store on Thanksgiving
• 39% say they ‘are less likely’ to buy from retailers who put out holiday things before Halloween
• 67% say ‘they are annoyed’ to see retailers putting out holiday items before Thanksgiving