Survey: Apple, Google Gaining in Customer Satisfaction

Tag : Apple
Survey: Apple, Google Gaining in Customer Satisfaction
One of my favorite ongoing research projects, the American Consumer Satisfaction Index , released its latest quarterly findings yesterday. Like earlierstudies conducted by this project of the University of Michigan's business school , the ACSI queries customers to find their likes and dislikes in afew selected industry sectors each quarter. (For example, in earlysummer it covered TV and wireless-phone services, among others .)
This time around, the survey covered Internet news sites, Websearch engines, cars, major appliances and personal computers. Asthe ACSI highlighted in its press release (PDF), one of the more surprising results was Apple's high score: Apple defies the industry by moving in the opposite direction andposting its largest gain ever to 85, a new all-time high for theindustry. The 8% leap puts 10 points between Apple and its nearestrival, one of the largest gaps between first and second in anyindustry measured by ACSI.
Google also did very well: After slipping behind Yahoo! for the first time last year, Google surged an unparalleled 10percent to leave all rivals in its wake. Google's score of 86 setsa new standard for e-businesses and creates a formidable nine-pointgap between its nearest competitor, Yahoo!, which fell 3% to 77.
Other companies in these sectors moved relatively little. Forexample, in the computers category, Dell bumped up its customer-satisfaction index from 74 to 75, while HP skidded from 76 to 73. In search engines, Yahoo slipped from 79 to 77, MSN held steady at 75 and AOL inched from 67 to 69.
Have a look at the complete results yourself, and then let me know if your own experience matches whatthose numbers suggest.
By Rob Pegoraro | August 20, 2008; 11:27 AM ET | Category: Recommended reading , The business we have chosen
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