14 DAY TRIAL // Apple has been chosen as one of the world’s most reliable companies, as far as customer support is concerned, in BusinessWeek’s annual customer service awards. Apple received an A+ in both the quality of the staff at its retail stores, and the efficiency of the stores’ service, with a total score of 1016.55. The two companies trailed by the Mac maker were L.L. Bean (Online/Catalog Retail), with a score of 1055.95, and USAA (insurance company) with 1042.76 points.
“It may have been a tough year for nearly every industry, but in our fourth annual customer service awards a few—particularly retail, hospitality and electronics — really shined,” BusinessWeek says.
Talking about the methodology used to pick the winners in its annual customer service awards, BusinessWeek’s Jena McGregor writes, “To get a complete score for each brand, we combined the results of all the 2009 studies in J.D. Power's database. For instance, there are separate studies for phone, Internet, and TV service for telecommunications and cable providers, all of which we aggregated into one score. To make fair comparisons, we included only brands that appeared on the majority of J.D. Power's studies for that industry.”
Softpedia readers may remember that, in December 2009, the Rescuecom Computer Reliability Report had again crowned Apple as the most reliable computer vendor. The report is described as “an unbiased analysis that compares computer vendors' market share with consumer service calls from Rescuecom's 1-800-RESCUE-PC call center.”
Results for Q3 2009 saw Apple and IBM/Lenovo leap ahead of Asus, grabbing the top two spots. Rescuecom claims to define computer reliability based on both the quality of the components employed, as well as the software used in manufacturing the computer. For Rescuecom’s December 2009 report, the key and final factor determining the customers’ satisfaction in a finalized sale was the quality of computer support the manufacturer provided.