The travel industry fared better than other
industries in the Ipswich, Mass.-based Customer Respect Group's
Third Quarter 2005 Online Customer Respect Study of the largest
airline and travel companies.
The study rated the
online performance of airline and travel companies, based on their
customers' experience interacting with their corporate Web
sites.
The group created a
formula by which to assign a Customer Respect Index (CRI) rating to
each company based on several factors, such as ease of navigation,
quick and helpful responses to inquiries, respect of customer
privacy, customer focus, open and honest policies and respect of
customer data.
A score of 8.0 or
more was considered excellent. Scores of 4.0 or below were
considered poor. The average CRI in 660 surveys across various
industries was 5.9. The average score in
the airline and travel industries was 7.2, up from 6.8 in the
group's first-quarter study.