Survey: Apple online store drops in satisfaction

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Survey: Apple online store drops in satisfaction

Apple’s online store has dropped in holiday customer satisfaction, according to a recent survey. The ForeSee Holiday E-Retail Satisfaction Index measures customer experience based on more than 24,000 surveys collected between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Apple earned an 80 rating, down from an 83, which is the company’s lowest score in four years — this is the eighth annual report. Though it’s unclear as to how many of the customers surveyed specifically rated Apple, the number of responses and popularity of Apple’s online store lend credence to the results. Amazon topped the list with an 88 rating.

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Comments

1

Substance of what the survey found aside, in what universe is dropping from 83 to 80 equal to a 4% drop (from the original article)?

Then, even assuming everything about their sampling method was sound, survey questions were valid for getting at meaningful results, etc., +/-3% is the normal variation for survey based sampling, aka, this year Apple scored merely a different faw score, but not a drop in satisfaction anywhere except in the heads of PR copy writers who think that 3% is really 4% and, if actually true, a barely measurable drop.

Posted by Code Monkey in Midstate New York on January 2, 2013 at 9:26 AM (PST)

2

Isn’t a score of 80 96% of 83 and thus a 4% drop?

Posted by TosaDeac on January 2, 2013 at 10:10 AM (PST)

3

@2: I think you may be reaching considering the remaining statistical stupidity. However, they make the same error with Dell, so probably just general stupidity.

For any normal reporter, dropping from a score of 83 to 80 is a drop of 3% since you’re already talking about a normalized score from 0 to 100.

Skewing the drop to a normalized score is just plain obfuscation, never mind that it is not 4%, it’s 3.6%, which while “close”, is still hooey.

Posted by Code Monkey in Midstate New York on January 2, 2013 at 10:33 AM (PST)

4

http://www.surveysystem.com/sscalc.htm

Plug the numbers in and you’ll see that 24,000 people across the U.S. population yields a less than 1% margin of error. Argue the validity/results/etc. as you will.

Posted by Jeremy Horwitz in East Amherst, NY, USA on January 2, 2013 at 11:29 AM (PST)

5

As Phil’s copy above already notes, it is unknown how many of the survey takers specifically rated Apple. Without knowing how many of those 24,000 people answered about Apple that calculator is worthless for determining CI

I’m not busting on anyone here’s chops, this is about the ridiculous fluff piece that is failing to report *anything* that supports a survey as valid. They engage in bad reporting by skewing already normalized results to inflate changes, and fail to report even the most basic of standard information like the MOE or SI. There is nothing here to defend, so why bother?

Posted by Code Monkey in Midstate New York on January 3, 2013 at 10:35 AM (PST)

6

That’s supposed to be CI, not SI

Posted by Code Monkey in Midstate New York on January 3, 2013 at 10:35 AM (PST)

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