The American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) that has been measuring and analyzing customer satisfaction across an expanse of companies and industries for nearly 25 years, recently released this year’s E-Business Report. The report ranked internet companies in three categories: internet social media, internet news and opinion, and internet search engine and information, revealing levels of consumer satisfaction (or not) with some of the most well know technology brands.
By category internt search engines and information is in the lead for satisfaction among users. Google undoubtedly continues to perform as the best-ranked search engine among customers considering that its’ ACSI score has not decreased since last year’s report. MSN’s rank is due to satisfaction with its many features and services on its homepage according to the surveys. Search engine navigation, site performance, variety of services and more have improved which bumps up 2018’s first place e-business in the rankings among consumers.
Individual Search Engine Rankings
Google – 82%
MSN – 76%
Yahoo! – 74%
Microsoft Bing – 73%
Ask.com – 70%
Answers.com – 68%
AOL.com – 68%
According to a press release, internet social media as a whole is showing increased public dissatisfaction, particularly regarding “privacy concerns, bots, and toxic online discourse”. It ranks the lowest out of the three e-business categories. Advertising also plays a big role in how social media is seen. That is why Pinterest reigned supreme in the 2018 survey; its privacy protection was thought to be top-notch and advertising was minimal or nonexistent. Facebook’s recent privacy scandal caused a slip in ratings, along with users believing its ads are intrusive and its ease of navigation to be subpar.
Individual Social Media Rankings
Pinterest – 80%
Google + – 79%
Wikipedia – 77%
YouTube – 75%
Instagram – 72%
Tumblr – 68%
Facebook – 67%
LinkedIn – 66%
Twitter – 66%
In the internet news and opinion category, FOXNews.com was rated best due to a loyal readership that is very likely to recommend the site. Online news satisfaction fell slightly in the areas of freshness of content, ease of navigation, site performance, and more. However, users found the number of ads on news sites to be slightly better compared to last year. The category as a whole ranked second in the report.
Individual Online News Rankings
FOXNews.com – 78%
NYTimes.com – 75%
ABCNews.com – 71%
USATODAY.com – 71%
MSNBC.com – 71%
HuffPost – 70%
CNN.com – 68%
Based on the report of all three e-business categories, keeping users up to date with fresh news, marginal advertisements, and easy access will correlate with companies keeping their ratings higher on the board. On whole, consumers seem to want simplicity, privacy, and transparency.
ACSI is maintained and published through a partnership comprised of the University of Michigan, ASQ, and CFI Group, that conducts its research with over 380 companies around the world. The data and information is collected directly from 5,169 consumer surveys.
