Daily Research News Online no. 2979 - Food Sites Lack Vital Ingredient

Food Sites Lack Vital Ingredient

March 8 2004

Food, beverage and tobacco firms are among the poorest in responding to customer queries via their web sites, a key element of the online customer experience, according to the Customer Respect Group's Winter 2004 Study. The study examines the sites of sixty-four firms in the sector that rank among the USA's largest 1000 companies.

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 overall online customer experience is expressed as a combination of six groups of attributes: Simplicity (ease of navigation), Privacy (respects customer privacy), Attitude (customer-focus of site), Transparency (open and honest policies), Responsiveness (quick and thorough responses to enquiries) and Principles (values and respects customer data).

As with most sectors, there is a wide variation in ratings between companies. Land O'Lakes scored highest with 9.2 out of 10, while Nash Finch Company and Seaboard Corporation scored lowest with 2.1.

Ratings for responsiveness are unusually low for this sector - the overall average score is 4.7, with a mammoth 30% of companies contacted failing to reply to any of the enquiries submitted and another 26% responding to only half of enquiries. Of those that sent an 'autoresponse' acknowledging receipt of enquiries (41% do so), nearly half (48%) either never replied or only replied to half of them. Surveyed firms receive the best overall rating (CRI: 7.4) for Simplicity.

Among other key findings, twenty-eight percent of the companies covered do not provide a privacy policy - a serious omission according to Roger Fairchild, president of The Customer Respect Group: 'Just as companies in the Food and Beverage industry provide customers with a list of ingredients in their products and detailed nutritional information, they should clearly outline their privacy practices'.

The sector's Winter 2004 ranking is as follows:


Food, Beverage, Tobacco Firm	Overall CRI

Land O'Lakes	9.2
Campbell Soup Co.	8.7
Smithfield Foods	8.7
Outback Steakhouse, Inc	8.7
Kraft Foods, Inc.	8.5
Anheuser-Busch Companies, Inc.	8..4
General Mills, Inc.	8.2
Carl's Jr.	8.2
Dreyer's Grand Ice Cream	7.9
Cracker Barrel Old Country Store	7.9
Pillsbury	7.9
Domino's, Inc.	7.9
Brinker International, Inc.	7.9
Altria Group, Inc.	7.8
Chiquita Brands International, Inc.	7.8
McCormick & Company, Incorporated	7.8
Kellogg Company	7.6
Hershey Foods Corporation	7.4
Starbucks Corporation	7.4
Tyson Foods, Inc.	7.1
The Coca-Cola Company	7.1
United Natural Foods, Inc.	6.9
Performance Food Group Company	6.8
McDonald's Corporation	6.8
Dole Food Company, Inc.	6.8
Jack in the Box Inc.	6.8
Cenex Harvest States Cooperatives	6.8
Hormel Foods Corporation	6.8
Adolph Coors Company	6.6
Brown-Forman Corporation	6.5
Sara Lee Corporation	6.4
Archer Daniels Midland Company	6.4
DIMON Inc.	6.3
Pepsi	6.2
Del Monte Foods Company	6.2
Hungry Jack	6.0
JT International	6.0
Constellation Brands, Inc.	5.8
Yum! Brands, Inc.	5.8
Spartan Stores, Inc.	5.8
Corn Products International Inc.	5.6
Michael Foods, Inc	5.6
Darden Restaurants, Inc.	5.5
Roundy's, Inc.	5.5
Interstate Bakeries Corporation	5.5
Pilgrim's Pride Corporation	5.4
ConAgra Foods, Incorporated	5.3
H.J. Heinz Company	5.2
Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company	5.1
Wendy's International, Inc.	5.0
UST Inc.	4.9
Dean Foods Company	4.6
Unified Western Grocers, Inc.	4.3
Flowers Foods	3.9
Supervalu Inc.	3.5
Gold Kist Inc.	3.3
Di Giorgio Corporation	3.1
Imperial Sugar Company	3.1
Farmland Industries, Inc.	2.8
Universal Corporation	2.6
Ralcorp Holdings, Inc.	2.6
Sysco Corporation	2.6
Seaboard Corporation	2.1
Nash Finch Company	2.1

Industry Average	6.1

Other findings for sector firms include the following:

of the 44% who responded to all enquiries, 82% did so within 48 hours, 7% within three days and the remaining 11% after four days.
Some 69% of companies provide email forms for online enquiries; 23% provide email addresses; 3% 'online contacts inappropriate to general consumers', and 5% provide only offline contacts such as phone numbers or postal addresses.
44% provide a keyword search function on their site.
72% have privacy policies on their sites explaining how customers' personal data is being used. In around a quarter of these cases it is nevertheless not very clear what is done with personal data, and of the remainder just over half do not collect data or use collected data only for internal purposes. 72% use cookie technology.

The Customer Respect Group is headquartered in Bellevue, WA. For additional information, visit www.customerrespect.com

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas unless otherwise stated.