LinkedIn, Pinterest, Twitter disappoint; FoxNews.com increases lead among
news sites
ANN ARBOR, Mich. (July 17, 2011) – Facebook, already the lowest-scoring
e-business company, suffers the largest decline in customer satisfaction
according to the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) E-Business
Report released today in partnership with customer experience analytics firm
ForeSee. The social media juggernaut plunges 8 percent to 61 on a 100-point
scale, setting a new record-low score for e-business and placing it among
the five lowest-scoring companies of the 230 measured by the ACSI.
As Facebook falls, cross-town rival Google+ does well with a score of 78 in
its first appearance in the ACSI. According to the report, Google+’s strong
showing is a result of an absence of traditional advertising and what is
seen as a superior mobile product. Google+’s strengths may be Facebook’s
weaknesses, as users complain about ads and privacy concerns. However, the
most frequent complaints about Facebook are changes to its user interface,
most recently the introduction of the Timeline feature.
“Facebook and Google+ are competing on two critical fronts: customer
experience and market penetration. Google+ handily wins the former, and
Facebook handily wins the latter, for now,” said Larry Freed, President and
CEO of ForeSee. “It’s worth asking how much customer satisfaction matters
for Facebook, given its unrivaled 800 million user base. But I expect Google
to leverage its multiple properties and mobile capabilities to attract users
at a rapid pace. If Facebook doesn’t feel the pressure to improve customer
satisfaction now, that may soon change.”
The e-business sector overall drops 1.6% from a year ago to a score of 74.2,
lower than the national ACSI score of 75.9.
“E-business websites used to be higher in customer satisfaction than most
other categories covered by the ACSI, but their performance over the past
three years suggests that they need to respond better to the changing needs
and expectations of their customers,” said Claes Fornell, ACSI Chairman and
author of The Satisfied Customer. “Our research shows that customer
satisfaction is critical for financial performance, as long as consumers
have choice and repeat business is important.”
As a category, Social Media is down 1.4% to 69. This year, the category has
been expanded, doubling the number of measured companies. In addition to
Google+, three other social media websites make their debut: fast-growing
upstart Pinterest (69), professional networking site LinkedIn (63), and
Twitter.com (64). Scores for LinkedIn and Twitter.com are well below the
category average. Wikipedia ties Google+ at 78 to lead the category for a
third straight year. Google’s other social media property, YouTube, slips a
point to 73, but still scores above the category average.
The Portals and Search Engines category is down 1.3% but remains on top of
the e-business sector by a large margin at 79. Google (82) hangs on to a
1-point lead over Bing (81). With the exception of Ask.com (80) and
Microsoft’s MSN (78), which remain unchanged, all other sites dip one point
from last year. Yahoo! registers a 78, while AOL (74) comes in last again.
“Google is to search what iPad is to the tablet market. Its name is
synonymous with the category, and it still dominates 65% of searches in the
U.S.,” said Freed. “Bing is doing all the right things to be a player in
search, but the problem is that Google users are generally satisfied and
have little reason to go elsewhere.”
In the News and Information category, FoxNews.com climbs 2% to 84 and has
the highest ACSI score of all e-business companies. It holds an eight point
lead over the next highest-scoring site, ABCNews.com (+1% to 76). After a
large drop in satisfaction in 2011 due to the implementation of their
metered pay wall, reader satisfaction with NYTimes.com recovers a bit to 74.
HuffingtonPost.com (69) remains at the bottom of the industry.
For complete historical scores and more analysis, please visit
www.theacsi.org, and for additional insight www.foresee.com.
About ACSI
The American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) is a national economic
indicator of customer evaluations of the quality of products and services
available to household consumers in the United States. The ACSI uses data
from interviews with roughly 70,000 customers annually as inputs to an
econometric model for measuring satisfaction with more than 225 companies in
47 industries and 10 economic sectors, as well as over 100 services,
programs, and websites of federal government agencies.
ACSI results are released on a monthly basis, with all measures reported
using a scale of 0 to 100. ACSI data have proven to be strongly related to a
number of essential indicators of micro and macroeconomic performance. For
example, firms with higher levels of customer satisfaction tend to have
higher earnings and stock returns relative to competitors. Stock portfolios
based on companies that show strong performance in ACSI deliver excess
returns in up markets as well as down markets. And, at the macro level,
customer satisfaction has been shown to be predictive of both consumer
spending and gross domestic product growth.
The Index was founded at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of
Business and is produced by ACSI LLC and supported in part by ForeSee,
corporate sponsor for the e-commerce and e-business measurements. The ACSI
can be found on the Web at www.theacsi.org.
About ForeSee
As a pioneer in customer experience analytics, ForeSee continuously measures
satisfaction across customer touch points and delivers critical insights on
where to prioritize improvements for maximum impact. Because ForeSee’s
superior technology and proven methodology connect the customer experience
to the bottom line, executives and managers are able to drive future success
by confidently optimizing the efforts that will achieve business and brand
objectives. The result is better business for companies and a better
experience for consumers. ForeSee is headquartered in Ann Arbor, MI and can
be found online at www.foresee.com.
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