The American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) has released its 2011 annual e-business report. Each year, data is compiled from more than 70,000 customers through interview and survey processes. Partnered with ForeSee Results, a leader of customer satisfaction analytics, the ACSI is a highly correlative report, proving that companies with higher customer satisfaction level yield greater earnings and stock returns.
With a total average of 75.4, the rule of thumb is that any company that ranks above 80 points is considered excellent. That being said, search engine overlord Google topped the list with an impressive 83 and social media kingpin Facebook bottomed out the list with a startling 66 points. Find out where your search, social and news sites of choice came in this year’s report, what makes this year’s ranking more important than ever, and how the future will affect next year’s ACSI report.
Below is a complete list of e-businesses measured by the 2011 ACSI.
News Outlets – 73 (Group Mean)
FOXNews.com – 82
ABCNews.com – 77
USATODAY.com – 76
CNN.com – 74
MSNBC.com – 74
NYTimes.com – 73
The Huffington Post – 69
Search Engines – 80 (Group Mean)
Google – 83
Bing – 82
Ask.com – 80
Yahoo! – 79
MSN – 78
AOL – 75
Social Media – 70 (Group Mean)
Wikipedia – 78
YouTube – 74
Facebook – 66
E-business Total Mean – 75.4
Right away, we can draw some interesting conclusions. Search engines, as a whole, rank higher in customer satisfaction than both news outlets and social media by a substantial margin. Search engines hold a 9.1% lead over news outlets and a 12.5% lead over social media. This could be attributed to users, who have grown in sophistication, now searching more directly and finding results faster and more accurately. Facebook, Google’s largest competitor in terms of web traffic, trails by 20.5% in customer satisfaction and, as a whole, has the misfortune of harboring the least amount of satisfied users with a score of 66 points. Bing, Microsoft’s newest search engine, has climbed substantially since 2010, rising from 77 points to 82, the second highest score (tied surprisingly with the controversy magnet FOXNews.com). User-generated knowledge compendium Wikipedia stands head and shoulders above its social competition at 78 points and Ask.com made the most significant increase since the 2010 report, skyrocketing from 73 to an impressive 80 points.
Some of the 2011 ACSI report can be attributed to a number of known factors. NYTimes.com, down 3 points from 76 in 2010 to 73, was surveyed right as they introduced their ill-received paywall that now forces online readers to purchase a subscription. The Huffington Post has the lowest news site score and second-lowest score overall at 69 points. This could be due to the oft-heard criticism of biased reporting and the assertion of censorship. However, the Huffington Post should be acclaimed for being individually ranked, which confirms its growing and established readership base. MySpace, which was ranked in previous years, was omitted from this year’s report due to the great decline in activity.
Facebook – currently, it’s the be-all, end-all of social media for much of the world. However, it ranked the lowest of any reviewed site by a significant margin. Why is this? Friends and family spend hours at a time on the site, looking at pictures, commenting on statuses, creating events and chatting about anything and everything. The business world is surging its online market share by utilizing the platform and its excess of 750 million members, tapping new audiences and frontiers. And yet, a large percent of us are miserable, dissatisfied customers.
Quite possibly, this could be derived from Facebook’s near-monopoly on the market. Despite the unrest and discontent its users may harbor, it’s still the only hangout in town worth going to. Twitter is one of many aspiring social media usurpers but is still only a fraction, both in functionality (albeit by choice) and membership, of the total user base. Twitter was not measured by the ACSI due to the numerous ways in which the site can be accessed, according to the group. Google+, Google’s new social media experience, has been quickly climbing the charts in popularity, but the ACSI report was completed before its June 2011 roll-out.
Certainly, the rise of Google+ will impact the 2012 E-business Report, as will Facebook updates, search engine surges and news source structures, but just how so is yet to be seen. The full ranking report, along with several press releases, can be found at www.theacsi.org.
Written by: Dane
Dane Fionda is a Copywriter and Marketing Associate for The Discovery Communications Group, and focuses on corporate branding and identity, web copy and editing. Hired in November 2010, Dane’s enthusiasm, creativity and keen editing eye were a welcome addition to the agency. Outside of work, Dane is enjoys trivia nights, road trips, and live shows. Dane holds a double Bachelor of Arts in English and psychology from the University of New Hampshire. You can reach Dane at Dane@discoverycomm.com or call him direct at 603-685-2917.
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