Surveys show Apple most admired, most satisfying company
Apple, riding continued high demand for its Mac computers and iPad tablets, has topped rivals in two new surveys of customer satisfaction.
Apple’s customer satisfaction ranking rose a point from 86 to 87 (on a scale of 100) to top the American Customer Satisfaction Index, which focused on PC makers. This is the eighth straight year Apple has taken the crown, topping its own record score from last year.
"In the eight years that Apple has led the PC industry in customer satisfaction, its stock price has increased by 2,300 percent," said Claes Fornell, founder of the ACSI and author of The Satisfied Customer: Winners and Losers in the Battle for Buyer Preference, in a statement. "Apple’s winning combination of innovation and product diversification—including spinning off technologies into entirely new directions—has kept the company consistently at the leading edge." Read more...
BI: ‘Voice of the customer’ programs combine feedback in one place
About 18 months ago, Charming Shoppes launched a customer insights project to "deliver actionable customer and market research and analysis to the business," according to Jeffrey H. Liss, who headed up the initiative. Liss is now senior vice president of corporate strategy at the plus-size women's clothing retailer.
Before that time, the company collected and disseminated customer feedback in a less than organized way, Liss recalls. Various departments and brand groups received input from customer emails and online product reviews, and store personnel received verbal comments from shoppers. Anything deemed relevant was "passed up the command chain" to top executives via email distribution lists, Liss says. As a result, "We had a lot of anecdotal information floating around," and executives had no way to distinguish important data from rumor, he reports. Read more...
Response to Firewall Report Shows Contrasts in Customer Service Philosophy
One of the most important aspects of choosing a hardware or software vendor is the customer service relationship, and the confidence that the vendor will be there to support you when the need arises. The response from vendors to the recent NSS Labs firewall report illustrates the stark differences in how vendors address and resolve issues.
NSS Labs is an independent third-party firm that provides research and analysis for its customers. It is not trying to sell a competing product or service, and its ability to get and keep customers depends on the accuracy of its report findings and remediation advice. In a nutshell, NSS Labs does not have an axe to grind, and it would be a very poor business model to exaggerate issues just to grab headlines. Read more...