14 DAY TRIAL // The American Customer Satisfaction Index study released today by the University of Michigan, in collaboration with consulting company ForeSee Results, shows that U.S. citizens are most content with Google. The satisfaction score in its case reaches 86%, a 10.3% increase as of last year. The category of portals and search engines is dominated by the Mountain View-based giant, while its all-time competitor, Yahoo!, falls on the second place.
With a decrease of 2.5%, Yahoo!'s satisfaction score hits a poor (compared with Google's percentage) 77%. ForeSee Results offers three explanations for the downfall of the Sunnyvale-based company, which, in 2007, held the first position. First of all, it was the negative media coverage, which included reports on Yahoo!'s financial drop, internal fights and turbulent negotiations regarding a takeover from Microsoft, that took its toll on the company.
Another reason invoked by the consulting firm is that the departure of some of the managers from the former board of directors crippled the ability of the company to bring forth competitive products. Also, Yahoo! is said to have failed to offer customer-centered applications, in a time when Google continuously enhanced its functions.
The third place in the satisfaction chart goes to all the portals and search engines that did not get a high enough score to be nominated, while the next position is occupied by MSN. Microsoft's product has been stagnating at the 74-75% score ever since 2003. The company that revealed the results of the study also offers an explanation for this state of things, as well as present the solution Microsoft thought would be suitable in the situation.
"It's increasingly clear why Microsoft feels the Internet is not quite big enough for both MSN and Yahoo! - the two companies offer very similar services and tools, with very little to differentiate the two. With MSN's search engine hemorrhaging market share while the company's customer satisfaction score stagnates (MSN has scored 74 or 75 on the ACSI every year since 2003), Microsoft tried reverting back to its old standard: 'if you can't beat 'em, buy 'em'."
The following positions in the chart are held by Ask.com (with a 1.3% drop as opposed to last year), and AOL, 3% up to a 69% score. This is the first year when portals and search engines are evaluated together, because nowadays the latter integrate almost all the functions that have previously been performed by portals.