For the eighth year in a row, Apple has come out on top of the annual American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) and Apple earned the ACSI’s highest score ever with 87 out of a possible 100 points. In an environment where it isn’t uncommon for companies to pass the buck from one company to another when problems arise and it’s not unusual for customers to tell stories about Apple going above and beyond to right a wrong, even when it’s clearly the customers fault………………..
Customer satisfaction across three durable goods industries stalls in 2011 with the majority of companies staying almost exactly where they were in 2010 and a report covers customer satisfaction with personal computers, major appliances, and electronics (televisions and BD/DVD players). One year after climbing 4% to a record-high score of 78 on ACSI’s 0 to 100-point scale, customer satisfaction with personal computers flattens out. The industry itself is in a state of rapid change with technology advances accelerating amid shifts in consumer preference. As the demand for traditional desktop PCs weakens, the tablet computer market is skyrocketing led by Apple’s iPad. Apple’s record of customer satisfaction preeminence in the personal computer industry continues unabated in 2011, as the company adds another point to its already exceptional score. At 87 (+1%), Apple outdistances its nearest competitor by 9 points. “In the eight years that Apple has led the PC industry in customer satisfaction, its stock price has increased by 2,300%,” remarks Claes Fornell, founder of the ACSI and author of The Satisfied Customer: Winners and Losers in the Battle for Buyer Preference. “Apple’s winning combination of innovation and product diversification—including spinning off technologies into entirely new directions—has kept the company consistently at the leading edge.” Among Windows-based PC makers, not much has changed over the past year. The two Hewlett-Packard brands Compaq and HP see only incremental gains (+1%) in 2011. At 78, HP outperforms last-place Compaq at 75 and customer satisfaction for both brands is higher now than at any time since the HP-Compaq merger in 2002. But HP’s market share is increasingly threatened by tablet computers, and the company may soon abandon the PC market altogether. Dell, Acer and the aggregate of all other brands (such as Toshiba, Lenovo and Sony) are sandwiched in between the two HP product lines, with no progress this year as evidenced by unchanged ACSI scores of 77.
For more than a decade, the major appliance industry (washers, dryers, dishwashers, refrigerators, freezers, ranges and ovens) has earned solid customer satisfaction marks scoring in the range of 80 to 82 in all but three of the years since 1994. A marginal retreat for 2011 brings the industry’s score down to 81 (-1.2%). For the past two years, pricing pressure has kept big-ticket consumer goods at near-constant prices, but sales have been mostly flat since 2010 and weaker than pre-recession levels. In 2011, all three major players in the industry encounter some slippage in customer satisfaction, but the change for Whirlpool is minimal (-1%) and the company solidifies its lead over both General Electric and Electrolux. While Whirlpool’s current score of 82 is not its best over time, the company has been much more consistent over the past three years than GE. GE’s customer satisfaction has been more volatile, with a 3% drop to 79. Over the past year, GE’s sales have been sluggish and its stock is down 20% year-to-date. Swedish manufacturer Electrolux also trails Whirlpool and drops 1% to 78—the lowest ACSI score for the company since its 2006 inclusion in ACSI. Going against the industry tide, small manufacturers improve in the eyes of their customers. The aggregation of all other companies producing major appliances gains 3% to an industry-leading score of 83. This group, which includes the brand Kenmore, is at its highest level ever in the history of ACSI measurement. Customer satisfaction with televisions and Blu-ray Disc (BD) and DVD players is unchanged at 85—the highest score among 47 industries covered by the ACSI. The industry is a longtime leader in customer satisfaction and this is the second straight year that electronics has led the Index.
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