Customer satisfaction, which has ticked steadily upward for the past two years, remained constant last quarter, according to the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI).
Among PC companies, Dell leads the way for the sixth straight year with an ACSI score of 78. Apple, up 6 percent, is right behind with a mark of 77, while the fall of Gateway continues — its 69 score is down 12 percent from its peak of 78 in 2000.
“In a market dominated by Dell and Hewlett Packard, Gateway faces a difficult challenge,” Professor Claes Fornell, director of the University of Michigan Business School’s National Quality Research Center, which compiles and analyzes the ACSI data said in the press release. “Service expertise, which used to be Gateway’s strength, has seen better days, according to customers. The company has reported negative net income and falling revenue the past five quarters.”
Full article here.
If someone on a Dell has never used a Mac, how could they know there is something much better out there? If they used both, they wouldn’t be “satisfied” with a Dell in the least. Misleading, false survey.
Apply it to anything else – if all you’ve ever driven is Ford, would you be as satisfied with your Ford after test driving a BMW?
As an owner of three Macs (PowerMac G4, white iBook, Ti Book) and user of two others (G3 iMac and G4 eMac) – and as someone who has owned/worked on at least 5 different Dell machines (laptops and workstations) – I can say unequivocally that there is absolutely no comparison. Dells are the ultimate generic Wintel boxes. Their appearance at the top of these surveys is a testament only to the ineptitude and poor build quality of the other Wintel companies.
Mac users are much more demanding, more discriminating, and more knowledgable. We are clearly more critical – that’s why we’re on Macs.
How does Dell lead? Ignorance is bliss.
You’re right on the money there Bob. Especially when you consider the high out of the box failure rates with Dell. They’re just the best of a bad lot…
Most of the Dell customers have never tried a Gateway or HP either. It probably isn’t a comparison survey, rather a “how dissappointed are you” survey.
People buying a BMW are almost certainly familiar with Fords or whatever. And people buying a Mac are almost certainly familiar with PCs. Those darn Dell buyers (who let the resident Micronerd keep it running for them) are blissfully ignorant.
I’m inclined to pay more attention to Consumers Union (http://www.consumersunion.org/) which publishes Consumer Reports (http://www.consumerreports.org/). CU is a totally independent source, where there are no “corporate sponsors” shown prominently on their homepage AND they’ve been around a LOT longer than 1994. Their index of customer satisfaction and product reliability have shown that Apple leads the pack.
While I do loathe Wintel, I’m slightly bothered by people’s constant bashing of PC users. Mac users are really walking aroung with an elitest holier than thou attitude. If a large chunk of those Dell users suddenly bought Macs, and Apple’s amrket share rose to 15%, you’d proclaim them to be one of your people, after years of beating them over the head.
Just because they buy a Mac does that make them “Macified” in your eyes? We need to lighten up on PC users and focus on the poor Wintel PRODUCT.
The only PC users that deserve some bashing are the trolls who come on here waving the MS corporate flag.
Well said, rageous.
I AM one of ‘those’ people (just switching to a dual G5); although my most recent PC has been a nightmare, the previous one was, in fact, a DELL – and it performed marvellously, can I just say (I’d have ticked the ‘satisfied’ box, no probs.).
I wasn’t a ‘lemming’ when I bought it – I was student, on a minimal budget, in a country with a relatively low Apple profile (U.K.)…AND I had been put off Macs by reading MacUser/MacWorld (my flatmate had a Mac) and finding out about all the problems Apple had at that time (this was the mid 1990s).
I have (now) chosen to switch to Apple for many, many reasons but, insofar as one of them is the feeling of belonging to a community, rather than just a target market, it might help if the more extreme macoholics lightened up and stopped grinding some of the lustre of that impression…
Brother Mugga
I live in a tar paper shack somewhere in Africa’s slums. It keeps the rain and the hot sun off. I am satisifed. If I had a chance to live in a mansion on the ocean for a week, I doubt I would be satisifed with the tar paper shack when forced to return. Ignorance is bliss.
Thing is, it’s perfectly possible to be satisfied with a Ford over a BMW. I’m a mac user. I’ve got a cinema display, I’ve got a dual G5 on order. For the moment (until my job goes to India or Thailand), I’m earning good money.
I don’t drive a BMW. I have no desire to drive a BMW. Certainly in London, driving a BME is associated with being a complete arsehole. I can’t do ANYTHING that I need to do in a BMW that I can’t do in my trustee Renault Kangoo. It’s ugly (though I like it) and underpowered and cheap. The only thing I regret is not getting aircon fitted (which WAS an option).
I can, however, so things in this nasty little car that I couldn’t possibly do in a BMW. I can fit my bicycle in the back. I can go and pick up white goods (washing machine, dishwasher) from the store and close the boot (trunk). I can get all my family in, and luggage, in safety and still comfortably see out of the rear window.
On a regular 200 mile trip to my parents’ place, I can comfortably cruise at 90mph for hours or push it to 100mph if I’m feeling saucy.
This car is more like a mac because it’s been designed for practicality. A BMW is like an expensive Wintel box. I always hate the car analogies for this reason.
Wonder how much Mike Dell had to pay um. Who the hell ever heard of ACSI, and any one thats happy with a Dell must be on something, the Dell Dude was.
rageous,
It’s “ELITIST” – not “elitest”
Perhaps you were implying that we are the elitest of the elitists. In any case, the product exists because of the users. Were it not for the acceptance of a sub-par product by the “unwashed masses” (credit that term to various Wintroll posts), the Wintel product wouldn’t be an issue.
“…how much Mike Dell had to pay um…”
Well, this press release says $125,000, but this is just one of many relationships the University of Michigan has with Dell:
http://www.umich.edu/~newsinfo/Releases/2000/Jan00/r011400.html
This Dell press release talks about the UofM Business School standardizing on Dell:
http://www.ap.dell.com/ap/in/en/bsd/casestudies/casestudy_umb.htm
Note that the only PCs to be purchased by the UofM Business School faculty and staff are Dells:
http://www.bus.umich.edu/Technology/Hardware/EquipmentAvailableForFacultyStaff/MinimumHardware.htm
Of course, this information probably means nothing in the context of the ACSI. I’m sure they are absolutely independent and completely unbiased. Besides, I’m only familiar with this UofM school. Surely there are other schools in the UofM system with different relationships and more open technology purchasing practices.
Bomb, why is there a need to pick out a minor and insignifcant spelling error? You know exactly what point I was attempting to make.
And to claim that the Wintel situation is the fault of the user is a completely invalid argument. In fact, many people work jsut fine on their computers and are quite happy with the experience. That’s not to say there aren’t much better alternatives, but to somehow state that every PC user is a stupid useless uninformed member of the “unwashed masses” is an erroneous point of view and diminishes any validity your statements may conatin.
rageous. Chill out. Consumer demand dictates product development. You don’t have to go to the University of Michigan Business School (toting your Dell Latitude) to learn that. If consumers were more discriminating, Microsoft would produce a better product to ensure its competitiveness.
Let’s not forget what happened to the American automobile industry in the 70’s. A seemingly insignificant threat ballooned into a fight for survival when they disregarded their Japanese competition – despite the superior quality of the Japanese product. The Americans were still able to maintain their market edge, and hold it to this day. Still, the quality of the American automobile improved significantly as a result of that rude awakening. Should the American computing public ever choose to wake up to the shoddy quality of the products on which most of them work, the result may be the same. I hope that will be the case. After all, if Microsoft/Dell/whoever produced a better product, then Apple would have even more incentive to up the ante yet again.
they should do a survey of how satisfied they were about their dell five months later, they would probably complain about how outdated it is. I have had my ibook for nine months and it is still going strong while I know people who are mad at their dell within 3 months of purchase. If anyone ever does a survey like that I would love to see it.