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Posts Tagged ‘Customer Satisfaction’

Apple scores high on customer experience index, iTunes not so much

Filed under: iTunes, Surveys and Polls, Apple

According to AppleInsider, Apple has scored higher than other PC companies on Forrester’s new customer experience survey, but their main software app didn’t fare quite as well. Apple came in at number 35 on the list, which places them way above PC competitors like HP, Compaq and Dell, though iTunes only scored place number 46, putting them way behind online media competitors Barnes and Noble (which sat at number one) and Amazon.com (#4).

The survey was driven by asking customers how well their needs were met by the companies on the list, how easy it was to conduct business with them, and how enjoyable the different interactions were. Note that this survey only rates customer interaction — in terms of actual sales, iTunes is still through the roof. And Apple is still leading the way in customer satisfaction as well. But in terms of actual customer experience, iTunes especially, for something that is quickly becoming Apple’s core method of interacting with customers, could probably use a little work.

TUAWApple scores high on customer experience index, iTunes not so much originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 15 Jan 2010 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple’s online store brought the Merry into the 2009 Christmas season

Filed under: Retail, Apple, Holidays

In some more bright, shiny, and happy Apple news for this first day of 2010, Computerworld is reporting that Apple’s online store took top honors for customer satisfaction in terms of the holiday shopping experience at a computer or electronics manufacturer’s site.

The numbers from Michigan-based ForeSee Results showed Apple’s satisfaction rate at 82%, four percentage points higher than those in 2008. The market research firm measures customer satisfaction by surveying more than 10,000 visitors to the top 40 retail Web sites as ranked by annual sales revenue.

The two closest computer and electronics sites to Apple were Newegg.com and TigerDirect.com, posting scores of 81% and 80%. Dell and HP came in at 79% and 78%, respectively, while the least satisfying shopping experience was provided by Circuit City’s Web site at 73%.

While Apple led computer and electronics Web sites in terms of satisfaction, the company wasn’t even in the same ballpark as Amazon.com. The online shopping giant grabbed a whopping 87% customer satisfaction rating in ForeSee’s survey figures. Other companies that were ahead of Apple in the rankings were Netflix (86%) and QVC.com (83%).

The ForeSee report also notes that the biggest retailers are getting both larger and better, at the expense of smaller online retailers. The big boys on the block can offer larger discounts, free shipping and better customer support that can’t be matched by the small fry.

TUAWApple’s online store brought the Merry into the 2009 Christmas season originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 01 Jan 2010 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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AT&T ranked last in cellphone service survey

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, iPhone

There’s bad news for AT&T in a recent customer satisfaction poll. Consumer Reports asked 50,000 readers across 26 U.S. cities to rank cell service providers on a variety of scales. Verizon came out ahead in 19 of the 26 cities. AT&T was dead last.

Dropped calls and voice service were among the chief complaints, and that’s no surprise to us. We’ve heard the frustration of fewer bars in more places and experienced it ourselves.

But here’s the interesting part. Despite the dissatisfaction with AT&T, 98% of respondents said they’d buy another iPhone. It would seem that the overall experience is good enough to eclipse the gaping hole in what should be the device’s main function: making and receiving calls.

Last summer, I spent a week in the middle-of-nowhere, Pennsylvania. Everyone’s Verizon-powered phone worked perfectly while my iPhone had gone deaf and dumb. Frustrating for me, and bad PR for my relatives. If the iPhone does go non-exclusive in the US, I’ll be the first in line to switch.

When reached for comment, AT&T had this to say:

“We appreciate and value all customer feedback. We learn from it and it helps us serve our customers better. Without question the surest indication of customer satisfaction is churn, or turnover. For the last quarter, our postpaid churn was just 1.17 percent.”

TUAWAT&T ranked last in cellphone service survey originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 01 Dec 2009 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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NetSuite and InsideView Partner to Create ‘Social ERP’

A growing debate in Enterprise 2.0 circles focuses on what value new technologies have for people who do back office functions. Questions persist about how Enterprise 2.0 technologies are built into the processes of every day work and what upside they really have.

In that regard, it’s interesting to note the partnership announced today between NetSuite and InsideView to bring in real-time information from across the social Web into such departments as accounts payable and human resources. The partnership will bring InsideView’s insights from across social sites such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google Blog Search into NetSuite’s CRM and ERP offerings which will help to create what it calls a’Social ERP’ system.

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NetSuite is a Software-as-a-Service provider that provides a cloud computing platform to help manage software suites. Its customers are mid-sized companies and divisions of large enterprises. Inside View coins itself as a Sales 2.0 leader, “bringing intelligence gained from social media and traditional editorial sources to the enterprise to increase sales productivity and velocity.”

NetSuite users will have access to information from a wide variety of traditional information sources and real-time social networks. The structured and unstructured information is aggregated and filtered by InsideView. It flows directly into the application and is filtered for the particular office function such as accounts payable. NetSuite says this is the first time a social component has been built natively into its application.

Some of the benefits the two companies see with the integration:

• Better understanding of customers and partners to assess payment risk and improve collection processes
• The ability to better use the buzz about suppliers and brand reputation and level of customer satisfaction
• Integrate social profile information to engage job candidates across multiple channels, including Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter;

InsideView for NetSuite was built using NetSuite’s SuiteCloud development platform. Additonal NetSuite partners are planning to build their own integrations, which the company says may mean more social components into the NetSuite environment.

Currently, NetSuite users may see information that others are collecting by subscribing via an RSS feed. Further integration could be the potential addition of activity streams for sharing intelligence.

This is an unfolding trend which we believe will create a more measured look at how Enterprise 2.0 applications fit with back office functions. It also represents another example of how business intelligence applications from companies like IBM will begin to compete in this realm as more efforts continue to meld structured and unstructured information.

Discuss

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Apple iPhone closing in on BlackBerry market share

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Apple, iPhone

Paul Carton, Director of Research at ChangeWave Research, reported yesterday at investorplace.com that Apple iPhone is gaining steadily on BlackBerry’s market share, a great feat considering BlackBerry’s entrenched position in the business sector. iPhone market share is now a heady 30%, still behind BlackBerry’s 40%, but RIM products are not gaining new users at nearly the same rate. As for Palm? Well, the Pre seems to have leveled out the free fall, but there’s nothing terribly encouraging about the data. My guess is they are still pining for those halcyon days of 2006 when Palm was king.

The smartphone market itself is rising; according to Mr. Carton’s research, a full 39% of consumers now own some kind of smartphone. Compare that with last summer, when the smartphone market was just cracking 25%.

The good news for Apple is that RIM’s stranglehold on the smartphone market appears to be loosening, and with so many consumers still to reach, Apple has the momentum. CNNMoney.com characterized Apple’s market gains as putting Apple within “striking distance” of BlackBerry. What’s driving the momentum? Customer satisfaction. Among those who plan to buy a smartphone within the next 90 days, 36% plan to buy an iPhone. And among current users, fully 73% of them are satisfied with the device, compared with only 43% of BlackBerry users.

Mr. Carton notes that BlackBerry is planning product launches this year, and Apple has already released the 3GS. If Apple holds true to its history, we won’t see a significant upgrade to the phone until next June. Either way, Apple has carved itself out quite a niche and the iPhone can no longer be dismissed as a toy to BlackBerry’s business device.

TUAWApple iPhone closing in on BlackBerry market share originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 28 Oct 2009 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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SlingPlayer Mobile 1.1 to have 16:9 support, 3G streaming in non-U.S. markets

Filed under: App Store

The iTunes App Store has been more than a little embattled in the last couple of months, but at least one app developer is soldiering on: according to Engadget, the maker of Slingbox, Sling Media, has recently submitted SlingPlayer Mobile 1.1 to Apple for approval.

The most significant changes involve true 16:9 widescreen support that utilizes all 3.5 glorious inches of the iPhone or iPod touch screen, and a new browser for Dish Network users that has touch support and is native to iPhone OS, as opposed to pushing through the standard browsing screen used on TVs. There is no mention of other cable providers, so presumably they are not in on the scheme for now.

The browser announcement primarily concerns only U.S. customers, and is dwarfed by one concerning carriers that are not AT&T: the non-U.S. version of SlingPlayer Mobile 1.1 will support streaming video over a 3G connection (the current version requires a Wi-Fi connection).

Again, this is only what Slingbox has put out for approval, and the mighty mercurial temperament of Apple’s app approvers still stands in the way. These are changes that Sling Media needs to happen: as of this writing, SlingPlayer Mobile 1.0 (priced at $29.99 and requiring the purchase of a Slingbox unit) is struggling a bit with customer satisfaction, and has an equal number of five star and one star reviews. Ideally, the native browser and 3G support will cross borders in both directions, which will make the application very desirable. Here’s hoping Apple lets SlingPlayer take these steps.

TUAWSlingPlayer Mobile 1.1 to have 16:9 support, 3G streaming in non-U.S. markets originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 10 Aug 2009 23:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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