Survey Says! … Apple Wins?
Published on 8 Sep 2005 at 12:00 pm |
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Filed under The Cargo Cults of Business, Apple Computer and Macintosh Related, Information Technology.
Apple is widely acknowledged to be the industry leader in ease of use, but an ACSI survey seems to indicate wider reaching implications.
IT World reports on an ACSI (American Consumer Satisfaction Index) survey in which Apple leads the computer industry for the second year in a row, and Dell’s numbers fall sharply.
There’s not much info there about methodology etc. but I found this comment particularly interesting:
Despite all the work the PC industry has done to try to make their products easier to use, customers are still frustrated by PC technology, Van Amburg said.
Van Amburg, the General Manager of ACSI, seems to be equating high customer satisfaction for personal computer purchasers with ease of use. The fact that the highest rated company in his survey has a long standing reputation for leading the industry in ease of use isn’t specifically called out, but it seems like a reasonable connection to make.
There is some further information about methodology here. That page says among other things that they rate based upon; Customer Expectations, Perceived Quality, Perceived Value, Customer Complaints, and Customer Loyalty. They have some specific commentary which gives a little more detail but it still isn’t possible to tell why Apple scores so high. Certainly some critics would claim that by having an overwhelmingly high score in the "Customer Loyalty" category that Apple’s other scores are merely swamped. It’s terribly common to see phrases like "fanatically loyal customers" used to describe the company. Yet, there’s that tantalizing remark about ease of use…
All in all, I wish more info about the survey methodology was readily available. In my experience ease of use can be a powerful element in overall customer satisfaction. It is good in its own right, and furthermore it reduces support costs and the chances of the customer having a poor experience in that area. I really can’t argue with the other attributes they’re attempting to measure, they’re all a solid part of the customer experience and will have a real bearing on overall customer satisfaction, with one exception. I really don’t believe that "Customer Loyalty" belongs on this list any more than say "profitability." There may be some iterative effect at work, but customer loyalty is more the result of high levels of customer satisfaction than it is a cause.
Given earlier discussions here and elsewhere, I’m led to wonder how much of that ease of use advantage comes from the hardware, how much from the software, and how much from the synergy of the two. My own personal opinion is that the higher quality and ease of use of OSX is enough to explain most of the seven point difference between Apple and the industry average. Still, it’s not clear from the IT World story how various aspects of the customer experience were weighted to come to this single rating number. Dell was singled out for criticism based upon less than stellar customer service, while Apple seems to be earning its rating, at least by implication, on the back of ease of use.
It also seems a little unfair to hit Dell so hard for a relatively small decline, one that merely brings them down to the industry average. It causes me to wonder to what standard they’re being compared. The situation could just have easily been described as "Dell loses ground slightly to Apple but still holds a strong second place in the industry." Given the implied focus on ease of use as a driver of customer satisfaction, perhaps Apple is now the standard? If so, why not say so? Perhaps in a Windows centric world it’s a little too risky to admit the Macintosh may be in the process of becoming the new standard?
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