Amazon, Uber satisfy customers better than Ola, Flipkart: Study

Freecharge founder Kunal Shah is running a poll on Facebook. In it, he raises a moot point--of acceptability between foreign and local players in India. The question he asks in the poll is “Where do you shop from? Amazon or Flipkart.”

Till now, 3,200 people have replied and 88 per cent have voted in favour of Amazon. There are still five days left for the poll to end. It, however, looks difficult Flipkart will be able to close the gap even in the remaining days.

Consulting firm RedSeer has also published a similar study and revealed that the e-commerce giant Amazon and ride-hailing app Uber have outperformed their rivals, such as Flipkart and Ola, in terms of customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Interestingly, the two foreign players have been able to provide customer satisfaction at a time when the customer satisfaction graph with e-commerce companies is on a decline.

RedSeer Consulting revealed net promoter scores (NPS) across the industry. This is a key customer satisfaction metric based on how likely customers are to recommend a brand or company.

While Amazon showed an average NPS well above 25 per cent, gloabl ride-hailing company Uber’s NPS rate was more than 35 per cent.

At the same time, both Flipkart and Ola reported an average net promoter scores (NPS) of around 20 per cent in Q2 2018. Surprisingly, this has been a fall of 5 per cent since Q2 2015, when both the e-tailing and cab hailing sectors reported an average NPS of over 25 per cent. A higher rate implies increased customer loyalty and satisfaction.

The study seems surprising when both the Indian-born online companies claim to be market leaders in their respective categories and together account for more than 80 per cent of the country’s Internet market.

The average NPS across consumer internet businesses is around 24 per cent.

Importantly, both Amazon and Uber’s NPS is higher than the overall industry average. For the online ride-hailing or cab space, the average NPS is around 25 per cent.

Meanwhile, when consumer satisfaction is decreasing across industry, newer segments such as health and fitness, online ticketing and hyperlocal services are outperforming online fashion and e-tailing.

CultFit has a near 60 per cent NPS, while EatFit’s is well over 40 per cent, compared with sector averages of more than 45 per cent and close to 20 per cent, respectively.

The development was first reported by Mint.