BlackBerry, Symbian and Windows Mobile come in close

Oct 1, 2009 06:31 GMT  ·  By

A recently published customer satisfaction study from CFI Group shows that the customer audience is no longer dominated by business users, and that smartphones like Apple’s iPhone, Palm's Pre or those powered by Google's Android OS are the leaders in consumer satisfaction. Moreover, the CFI Group Smartphone Satisfaction Study, based on responses coming from more than 1,000 users, shows that consumers do not see the satisfaction offered by their handset as being connected with the one delivered by their service provider.

The CFI Group compared the operating systems used in the new generation of smartphones, based on the methodology of the American Customer Satisfaction Index, and discovered that the iPhone is the one that leads when it comes to user satisfaction, with 83 points out of 100 possible. The study also shows that Google's Android and Palm's webOS (present only on the Pre at the moment) come in on the second position with 77 points each.

“The iPhone is the best thing to happen to the smartphone industry because it captured the imagination of a whole new set of consumers that might not have made the smartphone jump,” said Doug Helmreich, program director with CFI Group. “The iPhone raised the bar not only for other smartphones, but for the networks as well. The new breed of smartphone consumers expect more from their phones, and the iPhone may represent only the tip of a data-intensive iceberg.”

Other smartphones and smartphone platforms are also ranked pretty high in consumer satisfaction, including Research In Motion’s BlackBerry, with 73 points, and Palm's Treo, with 70, leaving behind platforms like Symbian and Windows Mobile, which only register 66 points when it comes to the consumer satisfaction they can deliver. According to the study, the new consumer audience is acquiring smartphones mainly for personal use, and has much higher expectations from the handset than early adopters who used smartphones mainly for business.

The Apple iPhone seems to be not only the leader in consumer satisfaction, but also sees the best loyalty and recommendations. According to the study, 92 percent of iPhone users said they had the perfect device, 90 percent recommended it, and 35 percent said they bought it based on recommendation. The survey shows that Android and Palm Pre are catching up with the iPhone due to consumer-oriented activities they deliver, including apps, web-browsing and multimedia. The full results of the CFI Group Smartphone Satisfaction Survey can be found here.