Sometimes it takes someone silly to make a silly argument. PC World’s David Coursey on Apple’s customer satisfaction:
When assessing Apple’s customer satisfaction it’s important to consider the “Halo Effect” that makes the company’s customers believe Apple is much better, regardless the actual difference.
In other words, Apple’s Mac customers are more satisfied because they believe Apple’s products are better. Apple recently scored an 84 percent in the satisfaction index from a servey by the American Customer Satisfaction Index; down a point from last year. Coursey’s headline on the news was technically accurate, but highly misleading. Apple Satisfaction Down from 2008, Others Way Up. Still, Apple’s customer satisfaction rating blows away all comers. Why?
Is Apple so good as to deserve a score fully 10 points above other major PC vendors? I think not, and attribute about half the difference to Apple customers who simply “think different” than their PC brethren.
Coursey’s conclusions, as usual, are laughable opinions designed to rile Mac users into a clickstorm—always good for PC World’s advertising. Two can play the same game. I conclude that PC users improved satisfaction ratings are due to the hope that a rising stock market brings to customers. Just like Coursey, not much math there, huh?
PC users love to beat up on their vendors, and with good reason. Supporting a Windows PC is a difficult task for hardware vendors.
Duh. You get what you pay for, no? Coursey says AppleCare is a good investment. I wonder if that has something to do with Apple’s higher customer satisfaction rating?
PC customers aren’t prone to give their vendors the benefit of the doubt that accrues to Apple. Most of Windows customers are disposed to not like their vendors very much. It’s Windows culture and another malady Apple doesn’t suffer.
Yes, and so why do PC customers not like their vendors? Why doesn’t Apple suffer from the Windows culture and other related maladies? Could it be, oh, I don’t know—better products and service? Where’s the Genius Bar at the local Best Buy?
It’s easy to mike (sic) light of a small drop in Apple’s customer satisfaction, given all the other cracks in Steve Jobs’ armor it seems significant as part of the trend. But, the really important numbers from the survey were the significant improvement in PC customer satisfaction.
Trend? The actual trend in the survey shows Apple doing very well in recent years despite the small drop this year. What Coursey didn’t tell his readers was the rest of the story. The survey chart displays ratings for Apple, Dell, HP, Compaq, IBM, and Packard Bell going back to 1996. Apple’s so-called halo apparently was not working between 1996 and 2003 when it ranked behind beleaguered Dell, and other PC makers.
My guess is that tight questioning would still find Dell and Compaq customers less satisfied than Apple customers. But, when corrected to overcome a bit of pro-Apple and anti-Dell/Compaq bias, I don’t believe the real difference is the reported 9 or 10 percentage points.
Hello? David? There’s a reason for the pro-Apple and anti-Dell bias. It’s good experience vs. bad experience. That’s not bias. That’s reality, which is accurately reflected in the survey.
What’s next? I bet Coursey believes in security through obscurity; Macs don’t have viruses and malware because the Mac’s market share is so small compared to Windows.
Kate's Comment Policy: Keep your comment on topic, relevant, worthy, and funny. Or, pick any three. Be pleasant, helpful, and only use your real name. Comments are moderated and will not appear immediately.