DETROIT — Online retailers are delivering the goods and better customer service than traditional stores, according to a University of Michigan study expected to be released today. Customer satisfaction with online retail was even with last year at 83 points on a 100-point scale but surpassed brick-and-mortar retailers by 12 percentage points, according to the American Customer Satisfaction Index. Satisfaction with the online market has risen by 8.5 percent since 2000, according to the index. It now outperforms all other service industries measured by the index. At the same time, online retail has grown into a $136.4 billion industry, up from $32.6 billion in revenue in 2001, according to U.S. Census Department data. However,the online travel industry fell for a second straight year, down 1.3 percent to 75. The three major online travel sites all had drops in satisfaction and increasing difficulty in differentiating their services.
