Zappos.com Overtakes L.L. Bean in Customer Service Poll

What merchant delivers the best in customer service? Online shoes merchant Zappos.com overtook last year's winner, sporting goods and apparel merchant L.L. Bean, in the NRF Foundation/American Express Customers’ Choice survey.

Amazon.com, which acquired Zappos in July 2009, finished second in the poll, up two spots from its 2009 finish. L.L. Bean placed third and Overstock.com, which was second in the 2009 poll, placed fourth.

The sixth annual survey was designed to gauge consumer attitudes toward retailers’ customer service, and to provide a listing of the top customer service retailers.

Consumer marketing intelligence firm BIGresearch polled 9,291 consumers in September 2010 to come up with the survey results. The consumer poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 1.0%.

Consumers answered the open ended question, “Thinking of all the different retail formats (store, catalog, internet, or home shopping), which retailer delivers the best customer service?”

To develop a fair comparison regardless of a retailer's size or geographic coverage, the consumer survey responses were compared to each retailer's 2009 revenues to develop the overall rankings.

Rankings were released Jan. 11 at the National Retail Federation’s Annual Convention.