Chatmeter has released its Retail Reputation report, which scores retailers using its first-party data. Among the findings, Lowe’s took the top spot, along with standouts like Home Depot and Costco. One success factor according to Chatmeter is cross-location consistency in employee training.
“A key takeaway from retailers here is that policies and training are not necessarily consistent across their stores, and this is hurting their relationship with customers,” Chatmeter SVP of Marketing Forrest Leighton told Localogy Insider. “Even at the top-ranked retailer, Lowe’s, we see many instances of poor customer service and frequent complaints that associates lack product knowledge.”
As for the full list of top scorers, here is the top 10.
- Lowe’s
- Food Lion/Ahold Delhaize
- Home Depot
- Albertsons
- Target
- Walmart
- Costco
- CVS
- Kroger
- Walgreens
Highlight Reel
What else do these top scorers have in common and what are strategic takeaways? Here is a highlight reel we’ve extracted to save time for Localogy Insider readers…
- Labor shortages and store operations improved: Customers mentioned staff shortages slightly less (about 1%, on average) in 2024 reviews of retailers compared to 2023. References to long wait times also declined by 16% on average.
- Retailers made progress on CX around anti-theft measures: Mentions of items being locked up surged 198% on average at retailers that utilize the anti-theft measure, but sentiment improved by an average of 10.5%.
- Product shortages eased: References to empty shelves and shortages dropped significantly by 25% on average, improving customer satisfaction.
- Discrimination was on the rise: Customer mentions of discrimination rose by an average of 16.5% in 2024 compared to 2023, indicating a potential emerging reputational threat as retailers de-emphasize diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs.
- Returns remained a pain point: Reviews mentioning returns were up by 9% on average, with sentiment declining slightly by less than 2%.
The Art of Reputation Management
All the above is powered by Chatmeter’s AI-based reputation monitoring. It started to integrate AI last year, with the idea that tracking a given business’s reputation across online channels is a good use of AI. The result is Pulse AI, which automates and scales the art of reputation management and monitoring.
That brings us back to one of the main strategic findings in this retail reputation report: the need for businesses – multi-location brands in this case – to work on better consistency in customer service best practices. AI can help by automatically flagging issues that need attention – a core feature of Pulse AI.
“The only way for stores to identify and solve these pockets of inconsistencies is to listen to customers at the store level,” said Leighton. “With AI, retailers can do this at scale, identify the most pressing issues, and pinpoint training or policy updates to address customer experience pain points.”
Check out the full retail reputation report here.
Header image credit: Photo by Marques Thomas on Unsplash
