Customer satisfaction related to e-business including portals and search engines, social media, and online news and information websites is the lowest it has been since 2003. This is according to a report released today by the American Customer Satisfaction Index and customer experience analytics firm ForeSee.
“From 10,000 feet, the erosion of customer satisfaction with e-business suggests that the sector will have a bumpy road ahead,” said Claes Fornell, founder and chairman of ACSI, which offers index measures on scale of zero to 100. “But the battle for customer preference is playing out at the customer-level. Companies that can find a way to make money without compromising the customer experience will please both its users and investors.”
Portals and search engines, the largest category in this sector, account for much of the decline, according to the report, which says that a 3.8-percent drop to 76 makes it the lowest score for the category since 2007. It explains the quality of advertisement and page load speeds are the two biggest sources of dissatisfaction with portals and search engines. And it adds that, with the exception of Google, search engines saw an average drop of 30 percent in primary users.
As for social media, satisfaction there dropped on the ACSI index by 1.4 percent to 68. “Social media is one of the lowest scoring industries measured by the ACSI,” according to the ACSI press release on the report. “Only ISPs are rated lower.”
Overall satisfaction with news and information, meanwhile, remained constant at 73, a score at which they have been fixed for three years now. However, ACSI reports that consumers did indicate they are less than pleased with the slow loading of video and other content.
Here are a few charts from the ACSI study:
2012 |
2013 |
% Change |
|
Social Media |
69 |
68 |
-1.4% |
Wikipedia.com |
78 |
78 |
0.0% |
|
69 |
72 |
4.3% |
Google+ |
78 |
71 |
-9.0% |
YouTube.com (Google Inc.) |
73 |
71 |
-2.7% |
|
64 |
65 |
1.6% |
Facebook.com |
61 |
62 |
1.6% |
|
63 |
62 |
-1.6% |
Which of the following statements about advertising on this website are true for you? |
Total |
|
Google+ |
|
|
Twitter.com |
Wikipedia |
Youtube |
I don't pay attention to the ads on this site. |
60% |
56% |
46% |
66% |
61% |
61% |
69% |
59% |
Ads interfere with my experience on this site. |
19% |
27% |
15% |
23% |
15% |
12% |
17% |
23% |
2012 |
2013 |
% Change |
|
Portals & Search Engines |
79 |
76 |
-3.8% |
Google Inc. |
82 |
77 |
-6.1% |
Bing (Microsoft Corporation) |
81 |
76 |
-6.2% |
Yahoo! Inc. |
78 |
76 |
-2.6% |
MSN (Microsoft Corporation) |
78 |
74 |
-5.1% |
AOL LLC (Time Warner Inc.) |
74 |
71 |
-4.1% |
All Others |
80 |
70 |
-12.5% |
Please estimate the percentage of searches you conduct with this search engine in a typical week. |
Total |
AOL |
Bing |
|
MSN |
Yahoo |
1% - 25% of my searches |
35% |
39% |
39% |
18% |
40% |
28% |
26% - 50% of my searches |
17% |
15% |
15% |
15% |
17% |
22% |
51% - 75% of my searches |
17% |
16% |
18% |
20% |
18% |
13% |
76% - 100% of my searches |
31% |
29% |
28% |
47% |
25% |
37% |
2012 |
2013 |
% Change |
|
News & Information |
73 |
73 |
0.0% |
FoxNews.com (News Corp.) |
84 |
82 |
-2.4% |
ABCNEWS.com (The Walt Disney Company) |
76 |
75 |
-1.3% |
NBCNews.com |
73 |
75 |
2.7% |
NYTimes.com (The New York Times Company) |
74 |
74 |
0.0% |
CNN.com (Time Warner Inc.) |
75 |
73 |
-2.7% |
USATODAY.com (Gannett Co., Inc.) |
75 |
73 |
-2.7% |
All Others |
72 |
72 |
0.0% |
Huffingtonpost.com |
69 |
69 |
0.0% |
In the cover story of the July/August issue of CUSTOMER magazine, a TMC publication, Fornell said: “The way to get high satisfaction and fewer complaints obviously is to deliver a good product and good service. But the most important factor is actually not that. It’s what I would refer to as fit. If the product really fits the needs and wants of the buyer then things usually work out. If it doesn’t, well then you have problems to begin with. As a seller, it’s very difficult. You tend to exaggerate the benefits of a product. You want to make that sale even if you know this is not really what the customer should have, but you try to sell it anyway. Then you pay the price later of not only having a dissatisfied customer that will not come back to you, but they spread the news as well. It’s better in the long run to be very selective in terms of targeting and maybe even saying no to customers who may want to buy your products if you don’t think they’re going to be happy with them.”