First of all, thanks to all 100 of you who have participated in the survey! The results are in and I want to take a few lines to present the outcome and ponder a bit about the possible implications. Comments are welcome! Let me please also say that statistically speaking, 100 participants do not make for a representative sample, but that doesn't mean the results are not interesting or useful.
Let us start with one of the most important questions. I asked if you would recommend Indochino to your friends. Back in 2010, 94,3% of all participants answered with yes, they would recommend Indochino. I asked the very same question this time and interestingly only 86,6% answered with yes. A clear decrease, but still a high recommendation percentage.
Another question that I had already asked in 2010 reveals a bit more. I asked if any of your Indochino suits required alterations. In 2012, 42,7% said they needed to make use of the alteration credit Indochino offers, a further 37,5% went for a remake. Only 19,8% said their suit fit perfect right away. By comparison, in 2010 only 22,4% needed a remake, 53,9% made use of the alteration credit and 23,7% said their suit fit perfect right away.
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| Other suggestions included more suits, more outerwear or just no more new items, just a focus on quality |
Another question that I had already asked in 2010 reveals a bit more. I asked if any of your Indochino suits required alterations. In 2012, 42,7% said they needed to make use of the alteration credit Indochino offers, a further 37,5% went for a remake. Only 19,8% said their suit fit perfect right away. By comparison, in 2010 only 22,4% needed a remake, 53,9% made use of the alteration credit and 23,7% said their suit fit perfect right away.
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| Blue = 2010 survey, Red = 2012 survey |
Now, what is also clear is that this costs Indochino a lot of money. Needless to say they will want to decrease the rate of remakes and alterations, even if they usually claim it is low anyway. This works in our favor though and the recently introduced digital cutting process and increased quality control should help the issue.
High remake and alteration numbers aside, the impact on customer satisfaction is still not that high. 40% of all participants are very satisfied with their items purchased from Indochino, a further 48,5% are somewhat satisfied. So it seems that even if there is some hassle with getting the suit to fit right, the satisfaction is still quite high. Speaks for their excellent customers service and the perfect fit guarantee.
Coupons are another topic I asked about. You might remember that Indochino had started 2011 with a huge amount of Groupon deals and then we didn't get any coupons for a long time. This let a lot of potential buyers waiting and unwilling to pay the full price. Later on we got coupons again, actually a really nice one for Black Friday, so I guess it's all good now or at least we know they will pop up occasionally. The graph below reveals how important they are.
Overall, the survey shows that Indochino largely does a good job at satisfying customers. Areas of improvement are clearly finding ways to reduce alterations and remakes. In the end, this would benefit both customers and Indochino. Let's hope their cash doesn't only go to marketing and increasing sales, but also to quality control and further improving fit, construction and quality. There is also a market for more products from Indochino (shoes, pullovers especially) and I hope we will see one or the other in the near future.
I also used the survey to ask you a bit about this blog and how I could improve it. Thanks to everyone who took the time to comment, pity I can't reply to all of the comments. Most of you wish for better pictures, more user reviews, more about other MTM makers and more about style and fashion in general. I'm working on it and thank you very much to all readers for sometimes stopping by to read and comment!
Let me know if you want to have more details, I can always update this article and I'll also upload a PDF with all the results.
