Love (or hate) your computer company?

2008s American Customer Satisfaction index, released by the University of Michigan for the PC industry show Apple taking the top honor for the 5th year in a row. Apple and Dell were the only companies to increase their customer satisfaction rating this year over last.

The ACSI scores are measuring consumer’s overall satisfaction with a company. This will include everything from the actual quality of the product to customer service, and anything else that a customer may like or hate about the company.

Apple scores!

Apple scored an 85 on the index. This is the highest score ever. Runner-up Dell was 10 points behind.

How does Apple do it?

Mac’s clear success here in the US helps, and so does Microsoft’s insistence that Vista be on all new Windows boxes. Gateway, HP and others were likely hurt by widespread dissatisfaction of Vista’s performance. HP is the market leader, with Compaq included under it’s corporate umbrella, and both had a drop of about 4 percent over last year.

Lucky timing?

The scores came from research in the 2nd quarter of 2008. Thousands of consumers were interviewed, but all before the debacle of the simultaneous iPhone 3G and MobileMe launches. This was not a high point for Apple, and will likely bring Apple’s score for next year down a bit. None the less, the gap between Apple and the rest is larger than it’s ever been before.

Sales figures reflect the scores

Between 1998 and 2002, Apple computer sales grew at an average annual rate of 1.6$. 2003-2007 figures shot up to 23.6%. 2008 should be even higher. Between the iPod, iPhone and Macintosh computers, Apple has created a great cross-pollinating product line, with new computer customers coming from iPod/iPhone users.

The rest…

After Apple’s stunning 85 score, and Dell’s 75, came HP with 73, Gateway at 72, HP-Compac at 70, and “All Others” (Acer, IBM/Lenovo, Sony and Toshiba) at 72.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.