The 2011 American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) E-Business Report was published today and the survey of 70,000 US consumers found Facebook to be the least satisfying of the largest social sites on the web. Only 66% of respondents said they were satisfied by Facebook, compared to market leader Wikipedia at 78%. Google, YouTube and Fox News all scored high in the survey as well. MySpace was dropped due to insufficient interest, after scoring the lowest among social sites last year. Low-scoring sites in other categories included AOL, the Huffington Post and the New York Times. Here are the numbers.
With Facebook continuing to show weak consumer satisfaction numbers, the obvious question is what this means for Google Plus. “What we do know is that Google is one of the highest-scoring companies in the ACSI and Facebook is one of the lowest,” said Larry Freed, president and CEO of survey partner ForeSee Results. “An existing dominance of market share like Facebook has is no longer a safety net for a company that is not providing a superior customer experience.”
The survey didn’t put Twitter into its own category, instead lumping together “all other social sites” – a category that declined substantially in consumer satisfaction. Facebook, though in last place in its category, actually climbed year over year from 64% to 66%.
Scott Ellison, analyst firm IDC’s VP of Mobile & Consumer Connected Platforms, put it this way, “Social is deceivingly fluid and Google+ is proving that. There are still enormous social app opportunities, especially apps that are interest and function specific.”
No qualitative or detailed information was made available concerning this dissatisfaction with Facebook, so it’s hard to know what it all means. It’s also worth noting that the clear majority of people remain satisfied by Facebook. It’s also worth noting that Facebook has changed the lives of hundreds of millions of people in a historically unprecedented way.
Finally, it’s worth noting that surveys are only questions asked of real people – so you have to take them with a grain of salt.
Below: From the popular if depressing blog Failbook.
