People appear to be really happy with Apple’s iPad/iPhones/iEverythings while Amazon.com has kept customers plump with satisfaction with Kindle offerings (and the copious amounts of other Stuff you can buy from the site), according to the results of a new customer satisfaction survey. Satmetrix, a reputable customer loyalty fever-taker, released their 2012 Net Promoter Industry Benchmarks report today that assesses the quality of service provided by companies in a range of industries, ranging from hospitality to travel to financial services.
The report is based on survey responses from consumers across the United States who rate their experience with the primary brands they use. Companies receive a Net Promoter Score, or NPS, based on customers’ likelihood to recommend the brand. The NPS is calculated as the percentage of customers who recommend the brand by rating the company 9 or 10 on a 0-to-10 point scale, minus the percentage who are detractors and give a rating of 6 or lower. Consumers also rate each brand on various aspects of customer experience, including product or service features, customer service, and overall value.
Apple took the taco in the technology sector, scoring an NPS of 71% for its computer hardware sector while it also netted a score of 68% for its consumer software applications.
Meanwhile, Amazon.com emerged as the leader in online services (and was the second-highest rated company of all brands included in the overall study) by scoring 76%. Google, a company that is synonymous with online search, scored an NPS of 56%. That Google would receive a low-ish rating and still emerge as the top online search site isn’t entirely surprising since, if comScore’s monthly rankings demonstrate anything, that isn’t merely a choice for how to search the internet but it is how you search the internet. What’s more incredible about barely one of every two Google users recommending the search company is that Google somehow still manages to dominate the market. It’s as if people simply don’t know that there are other options.
Facebook, however, took a plunge with their NPS score of 31% as it lost 21 points compared to the company’s benchmark from last year. Such a dreary outlook from Facebook’s consumers must cast a pall on all that optimism leading into the social network becoming a publicly traded company later this spring. Maybe people really aren’t all that wild about being inundated with ads and insignificant updates about who-read-what-and-where.