ASCI Index shows Google leads in customer satisfaction
For the fifth consecutive year Google leads all web sites in the e-business report of the American Customer Satisfaction Index. Yahoo dropped four points into a battle for second with MSN and AOL.
Customer satisfaction with the e-business category, defined in the Index as 10 sites spanning search engines, portals and other information sites, increased slightly since last year, rising 0.8% to 76.5% on ASCI’s 100-point scale. That score makes it one of the best-performing categories in the Index, where the cross-industry average score is 74.4.
At 81, Google’s score dropped one point since last year, but it has maintained the highest score in its category while expanding its range of services broadly. According to the study report, Google has held onto the lead with a dedicated focus on the customer. “Google’s customer-centric focus is clearly the way to do business on the web,” says Larry Freed, CEO of Foresee Results. “By putting the user in control of the online experience, Google has maintained dominance of the search market as they expand into a host of other services.”
Google will be challenged to sustain that dominance as it continues to expand, according to the study report, noting that customers will expect the same quality of any line or service extension that they now expect of the larger Google brand. Google must also work to maintain customer satisfaction at a time when it’s monetizing free services, the report notes.
Yahoo has lost ground in the Index since last year, with its efforts to be all things to everyone producing mixed results, the report notes. While sustaining its position as an innovator, it’s losing out to Google in the profitable arena of paid search advertising and it grapples with a complicated home page quite different from Google’s cleaner interface. “Yahoo may be offering more options than its users need, or at the very least, throwing them too many options at once,” concludes the report.
The ACSI is produced by the University of Michigan in partnership with the American Society for Quality and CFI Group. Foresee Results is co-sponsor and author of the ACSI e-business report.
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