American Consumer Satisfaction Index
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Samsung squeezed past Apple in consumer satisfaction for smartphones
Apple may have owned Christmas, but Samsung won the first half of the year when it came to satisfying shoppers with its phones. The latest stats from the American Consumer Satisfaction Index, which surveys 70,000 consumers every year, show Samsung slightly beating out Apple by two points with a satisfaction score of 81. Sure, it's not a huge lead, but it's a big jump for the company from last year's score of 76. Apple, meanwhile, saw its score fall more than two points since last year. It's always tough to read much into these numbers (was it the Galaxy S5 that helped, or just Android improvements?), but it's still a decent win for Samsung. Don't be surprised if Samsung ends up marketing the heck out of this during the Super Bowl.
Comcast and TWC voted most-hated ISPs in America's most-hated industry
America's Consumer Satisfaction Index doesn't have a lot of nice things to say about Comcast or Time Warner Cable. The two business, which are currently trying to merge with each other, were found to be the worst ISPs in the most-hated industry that the index covers. Time Warner has the dubious achievement of making an all-time low score of 56 out of 100, with Comcast coming in just ahead of it with 57. On the other end of the scale, the 12,248 participants reluctantly gave their blessing to Verizon's FiOS, with a score of 71, and AT&T's U-Verse, which scored 65. What will this mean if Comcast and TWC do create a nationwide "triple play" behemoth? Mammoth profits for some, and red-faced calls for plenty of others.
Apple tops satisfaction survey for 8th year
For the eighth year in a row, Apple has come out on top of the annual American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI). Additionally, no other company got close to touching Apple. In the 2011 survey, Apple earned the ACSI's highest score ever, with 87 out of a possible 100 points. That's one point higher than last year and nine points higher than Apple's closest rival in the survey, HP, which scored a 78 (which is also the PC industry average in the ACSI survey). The last time Apple missed the top spot was in 2003, when Dell held a one-point margin. The ACSI conducts over 70,000 interviews to gather its results on over 225 companies and 200 federal or local government services. ACSI then breaks down the results into 10 economic sectors and 47 industries awarding scores of 0 to 100, which measure consumer feelings and customer satisfaction towards companies and products. In a statement, ACSI founder Claes Fornell summed up Apple's performance which keeps it at the top of the ACSI: "In the eight years that Apple has led the PC industry in customer satisfaction, its stock price has increased by 2,300 percent. 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." [via Cnet]
