Well, This Is Pretty Funny …
by John Paczkowski
Posted on August 19, 2008 at 7:58 AM PT
My God, the irony–it BURNS. The American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) on Tuesday gave Apple its highest-ever score (PDF), awarding the company a record 85 points in its 2008 survey of consumer sentiment. This, as customer satisfaction with Apple’s iPhone 3G and MobileMe service presumably plummets thanks to some much-publicized outages and failures.
“We haven’t seen anything like this before, where a company scores 10 points over its nearest rival,” said ACSI head Claes Fornell. “It’s almost an aligning of the stars. There was a question mark last year about Apple, that maybe it had taken its eye off the ball by concentrating on the iPhone, but now, the iPhone and iPod and Mac are nicely aligned.”
Of course, ACSI scores don’t yet reflect the the pair of black eyes Apple’s (AAPL) suffered in the past few months courtesy of the iPhone 3G and MobileMe. And they will undoubtedly weigh heavily on the company’s next ranking. Said Fornell, “Apple will be very difficult to catch, but I don’t think that these results, where there’s a 10-point difference, will hold.”
Comments
I completely agree with you about Apple’s flub of the MobileMe, better called MobileMeh! service. But to imply the 3G rollout has been anything less than stellar is wishful thinking. Don’t get sucked into the I read it on the internet, mentality. iPhone 3G is a worldwide hit, even in places it was expected to fail, like Japan.
Posted by Jon Holland at August 19th, 2008 at 9:17 amThat’s just it- the consumers have caught on to the unnecessary and often negatively biased press Apple gets for simply being Apple. And so they’ve become death to this and are willing to come to their own conclusion- 85% approval rate! How about that- people can think for themselves thanks to the Apple stores.
Posted by Luis Diaz at August 19th, 2008 at 9:20 amNice try. Even though I had iPhone 3G and MobileMe problems myself. I STILL have to say that Apple’s customer service is the best in the industry. AppleCare is one of the few extended service contracts worth buying for any computer or tech device.
Apple service at Genius Bars may have a few distractors, but it is like finding a water fountain in the desert to anyone who has needed tech help in an industry where calling, holding, and having to try to communicate a problem to someone in a foreign country who barely speaks the “kings english” has become the norm.
I have had Apple store turn around broken computers with dead hard drives in 24 hours. I have been in and out of an Apple Store in 15 minutes with a “real” fix!
They also offer free tech help, free training on their products, and inexpensive one-on-one training. Try getting any help with Windows except from the kid down the street that is the neighborhood expert, or so some of the neighbors think so anyway.
Get ant superior personal service from Dell, HP, Gateway or at a Best Buy or Circuit City lately? I did not think so.
Complaints are always easy, as no one is perfect, but show me the “better” one!
Posted by Stephen Antonucci at August 19th, 2008 at 10:37 amI also agree that Apple sometimes gets bad press simply for being Apple. As a consumer I have nothing but good things to say about their excellent thought out products and their great customer service. The free consultations at the apple stores are very convenient.
Posted by paul sem at August 19th, 2008 at 10:53 amI’ve seen this FUD/Fear Uncertainity & Doubt, periodically propgated on the web mostly and sometimes in the mainstream media.
First, it’s the periodic stock options scandal that pops up every quarter around earnings season; then it was battery problem with 1st gen iphone; oh, and before that the scratches on the 1st & 2nd gen ipods.
And now, the reception problems with the 3G iphones. Talk about lame reporting- no wonder one no one pays any attention anymore.
Posted by Luis Diaz at August 19th, 2008 at 1:40 pmwrite a blog using the word “APPLE”, voilla !! you grab attention. No matter how inane the comment. Purchased IBM thinkpad directly from IBM, together with support package. Support was unfailingly polite, if inept. It took Apple support to configure the Thinkpad to work with airport extreme. Apple’s support is impeccable. They just replaced one of my machines, overnight, because repair wasn’t effective enough. Oh, did I mention that the machine they took back was 6 months out of warranty? Bottomline, it is wise to know what one is talking about. All these Steve Jobs second guessers, critics, “annalists” miss one thing: they are no Steve Jobs. Instead, they should GET a job.
Posted by Tim Berre at August 19th, 2008 at 1:49 pmApple’s customer experience and user experience is second to none. No one else is even close.
Posted by Neil Anderson at August 19th, 2008 at 3:58 pmWhat’s actually burning is your reputation, not Apples. People are forgiving by nature, if you act responsibly, and generally Apple’s quite ahead of the pack, as reflected by its satisfaction score. Pundits, like you, make your living by not reporting actual news but stirring-up opinion and selling that…we’re on to you, and many of us aren’t buying.
Posted by J trascap at August 20th, 2008 at 1:13 amApple’s score on the American Customer Satisfaction Index reflects customer satisfaction with their personal computers only. It does not reflect satisfaction with iPods, iPhones (original or 3G), .Mac or MobileMe. It is therefore out of context to imply that Prof. Fornell’s comment (that the 10-point difference will not hold) is in reference to Apple’s difficulties with MobileMe. Rather, his point is that he expects the competition to make efforts to close the gap, and Apple continues to set the bar for customer satisfaction in the PC market. (For the ACSI, Courtney Jenkins)
Posted by Courtney Jenkins at August 21st, 2008 at 2:12 pm