Customer Satisfaction Down for Toyota, Apple and Google

The American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) has registered a marginal increase overall as customer satisfaction slows down, according to a report released yesterday from the University of Michigan’s National Quality Research Center, writes MarketingCharts. The Index in the second quarter edged up 0.1 percent to 75.3 on ACSI’s 100-point scale - up only 1 percent since the second quarter of 2006.

“Customer satisfaction is pretty flat and consumer spending is slowing down,” said Professor Claes Fornell, head of the ACSI at the University of Michigan. “Still, with low unemployment, healthy corporate profits, and income and wage growth, consumers continue to spend. But the slumping housing market and increased debt load may contribute to weakening spending growth.”

The ACSI measures a different set of industries each quarter. Industries in the consumer durables and e-business sectors are measured every second quarter.

Within those sectors, the following is an overview of the state of satisfaction regarding automobiles, personal computers, appliances, portals & search engines, and news and information websites, according to the ACSI:

Portals & Search Engines: Yahoo makes a comeback while Google stumbles

• Yahoo improved 4 percent to 79 to take the lead over Google for portals and search engines. A number of design changes and enhancements are paying off paying off for Yahoo in higher customer satisfaction, which will be critical to turning around this year’s lackluster financials.
• Google fell 4 percent from a year ago to a score of 78, but it is still the most popular search engine. Its home page has not changed much, and some users say it looks stale compared with Ask.com, which has a very different display of search results.
• Ask.com’s ACSI score increased more than any other search engine. It is up 6 percent to a score of 75, still well behind Google. But it may well be a factor behind the falling Google scores, as some users compare the two.
• AOL suffered the largest plunge in customer satisfaction this quarter, down 10 percent to the lowest score in the industry (67).

Automobiles: Detroit still behind despite drop by Asian automakers

• Customer satisfaction with automobiles continues to improve, climbing 1 percent to a new high of 82.
• Driving the improvement is greater satisfaction with domestic and European brands. These improvements more than offset declines by nearly all Asian manufacturers.
• Toyota’s luxury brand, Lexus, improved to 87 to lead the industry, but Toyota and Honda slipped 3 percent and 2 percent, respectively, to 84.
• The only domestic nameplates to score better are the luxury brands like Cadillac (+2 percent to 86), Buick (86), and Lincoln-Mercury (+4 percent to 86).
• Ford (+4 percent to 80), Chevrolet (+1 percent to 82), and Dodge (+3 percent to 80), still lag Toyota and Honda after registering improving customer satisfaction.

“American automakers are narrowing the gap with Asian manufacturers, but they’re still coming in last,” said Prof. Fornell. “Though foreign nameplates just passed domestic cars for monthly sales, Detroit’s Big Three might have an opportunity to take advantage of Toyota’s difficulties in maintaining quality as it increases production. When you make more cars, chances are quality is going to slip.”

Personal Computers: New problems for Apple, more problems for Dell

• Overall customer satisfaction with the PC industry fell 3 percent to a score of 75.
• Apple and Dell contributed the most to the decline in customer satisfaction, each dropping 5 percent.
• Despite the drop, Apple still is the industry leader in customer satisfaction, with a score of 79.
• After last year’s improvement, Dell’s continuing customer service problems have the company back near the bottom of the PC rankings with a score of 74.
• Hewlett-Packard’s HP division improved 1 percent to 76, though its Compaq division is the worst in the industry at 73.

“Apple has experienced unprecedented growth in recent years,” said Prof. Fornell. “As Toyota can attest, it’s not easy to manage quality and customer satisfaction when a company quickly has to increase production or provide service to a larger number of customers.”

ACSI also covers Internet News & Information sites:

About the ACSI: The American Customer Satisfaction Index is a national economic indicator of customer evaluations of the quality of products and services available to household consumers in the United States. It is updated each quarter with new measures for different sectors of the economy replacing data from the prior year. The overall ACSI score for a given quarter factors in scores from about 200 companies in 43 industries and from government agencies over the previous four quarters. The index is produced by the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business in partnership with the American Society for Quality (ASQ) and CFI Group, and is supported in part by ForeSee Results, corporate sponsor for the e-commerce and e-business measurements.