Consumers of the world unite! The results are in and many are not happy with the service they've been getting from retailers.
According to a report built on surveys completed by 70 million people in 140 countries, the level of satisfaction consumers have with retailers fell four points from the fourth quarter of 2011 (82 percent) to the first quarter of 2012 (78 percent).
On the one hand, it would seem that retailers stepped up during the critical fourth quarter, the busiest time of the year for many merchants around the globe. On the other, a step back when things have quieted down should be reason for concern.
Zendesk, which carried out the research, said retail performs five percentage points below the average for customer satisfaction among all the industries it charts.
"When we looked at the reasons why these numbers indicate what they do, we noticed that customer service inquiries actually were 16 percent higher in the most recent quarter and the number of solutions resolved in one touch went down 12 percent," said JD Peterson, vice president of product marketing at Zendesk. "We have seen that when inquiries go up and the ability to resolve them the first time goes down, it can have a negative impact on customer satisfaction."