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The latest results from the Customer Respect Group suggest that transportation and logistics firms are among the poorest when it comes to customers' online experience.
The Spring 2004 Online Customer Respect Study covers 25 companies in the sector that rank among America's largest 1000 companies. The sector's average score was the lowest among those studied to date in 2004.
The Customer Respect Index (CRI) is a qualitative and quantitative in-depth analysis and independent measure of a customer's online experience when interacting with companies via the Internet. The attributes which add up to that experience are collected into six groups: Simplicity (ease of navigation), Privacy (respects customer privacy), Attitude (customer-focus of site), Transparency (open and honest policies), Responsiveness (quick and thorough responses to inquiries) and Principles (values and respects customer data).
With a few notable exceptions, especially the near-perfect Yellow Corporation, results for the sector were disappointing. 28% do not provide an online privacy policy (vs 10% of the USA's top 100 companies). 37% of those contacted did not reply to any enquiries submitted, and a further 21% responded only to around half of enquiries.
In terms of contact details, 44% of companies provide email forms for online enquiries, 48% email addresses, 4% 'online contacts inappropriate to general consumers' and the remaining 4% provide only offline contacts such as phone numbers or postal addresses.
Surveyed firms receive the best overall rating (CRI: 7.3) for Simplicity and the worst (CRI: 4.6) for Responsiveness.
'Transportation and logistics firms have some work to do with their online presence', says Roger Fairchild, president of The Customer Respect Group. 'Most have figured out how to create sites that are fairly simple to navigate, but haven't paid attention to other important areas such as responsiveness, privacy and principles. Frankly, the fact that more than one third don't respond to any inquiries and more than half don't respond to all inquiries displays an unacceptable attitude toward online customers'.
The sector's average score was 5.9. Among the big international names, UPS rated very highly (second to Yellow albeit by some distance) whereas FedEx and DHL are mid-table.
| Transportation & Logistics Firm | Overall CRI |
| Yellow Corporation | 9.8 |
| United Parcel Service, Inc. | 8.7 |
| Amerco | 8.4 |
| J.B. Hunt Transport Services, Inc | 8.2 |
| Polaris Industries Inc. | 7.7 |
| Roadway | 7.3 |
| C. H. Robinson Worldwide, Inc. | 7.2 |
| Con-Way | 7.2 |
| United States Postal Service | 7.1 |
| EGL, Inc. | 7.1 |
| DHL | 7.0 |
| USFreightways Corporation | 6.6 |
| FedEx Corporation | 6.6 |
| Ryder System, Inc. | 6.0 |
| Harley-Davidson, Inc. | 6.0 |
| Matson Navigation Company, Inc. | 5.9 |
| ABF Freight System, Inc. | 5.7 |
| Brunswick Corp. | 4.9 |
| Landstar System, Inc. | 4.6 |
| Swift Transportation Company, Inc. | 4.3 |
| Expeditors International of Washington | 3.1 |
| Hub Group Inc. | 2.7 |
| Pacer International, Inc. | 2.7 |
| BAX Global Inc. | 2.3 |
| Werner Enterprises, Inc. | 1.6 |
| Industry Average | 5.9 |
All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.
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