How satisfied are you with the burgeoning if not overwhelming social media these days? The American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), in partnership with customer experience analytics firm Foresee, published its annual E-Business Report on July 17, showing that customers aren't all that satisfied with social media, and Facebook is one of the five lowest scoring companies in all of ACSI ((that's more than 230 companies). Google, on the other hand, maintains top spot on search, while Google+ debuts at the top of social media. Also new to the ACSI are LinkedIn, Pinterest and Twitter.com
According to the report, Facebook, already the lowest-scoring e-business company, suffers from the largest decline in customer satisfaction. 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.
Google+ is Facebook's biggest rival. And it does well with a score of 78 in its first appearance in the ACSI report. The report states that "Google+'s strong showing is a result of a lack of traditional advertising and what is seen as superior mobile product. Google+'s strengths may be Facebook's weaknesses, as users complain about ads and privacy concerns. However, the most frequent customer 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."
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. 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 is a national economic indicator of customer evaluations of the quality of products and services available to household consumers in the United States. Data from interviews with approximately 70,000 customers annually are used as inputs into an econometric model to measure satisfaction with more than 225 companies in 47 industries and 10 economic sectors, as well as more than 130 federal government departments, agencies, and websites. Results are released on a monthly basis with all measures reported using a 0-100 scale. ACSI data has 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.
Founded at the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business, the Index is produced by ACSI, LLC and supported in part by ForeSee, corporate sponsor for the e-commerce and e-business measurements.
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, Michigan and can be found online at www.foresee.com.