[Sigia-l] Fwd: News Sites Beat Search Engines in Customer Satisfaction

[Melissa Riesland]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Search Day
> [mailto:listsupport at internet.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, August 20, 2002 6:55 AM
> 
> SearchDay
> August 20, 2002 - Number 337
> 
> + News Sites Beat Search Engines in Customer
> Satisfaction
> 
> A respected customer satisfaction index reports
> that users are happier
> with news and information sites than search
> engines or portals -- and
> predicts the demise of several laggards.
> 
> The University of Michigan's American Customer
> Satisfaction Index (ACSI)
> measures user attitudes in 35 industries,
> including nearly 200 companies
> and government agencies, ranging from
> traditional retail to hotels to
> government agencies like the IRS.
> 
> With the release of its most recent report, the
> ACSI is now measuring
> customer satisfaction with three of the most
> heavily used web services --
> news and information sites, portals and search
> engines.
> 
> The survey ranks satisfaction on a scale of
> 1-100.  Search engines and
> portals both had an overall score of 68, while
> the industry score for news
> and information sites was 73.  The composite
> numbers mask a wide range of
> scores among individual companies, however.
> 
> In search engines, the differences between what
> ACSI calls "the largest
> competitors" are vast. Google registers a score
> of 80 -- more than 30%
> better than Alta Vista (61) and Ask Jeeves
> (62). Satisfaction with portal
> sites show a similar divergence, with Yahoo
> scoring 76 and Microsoft's MSN
> at 72, while AOL remains a laggard at 59.
> 
> The report says that such a difference among
> competitors is extremely rare
> and is usually limited to evolving industries.
> And based on historical
> evidence, the future looks bleak for the
> services with low scores.
> 
> According to University of Michigan Business
> School Professor Claes
> Fornell, who wrote the analysis of the
> findings, companies with scores as
> low as AltaVista, Ask Jeeves and AOL are rarely
> sustainable in competitive
> markets: either there is improvement or the
> company is forced to leave the
> market, unless, of course, it has significant
> monopoly power.
> 
> In contrast to the wide divergence between
> search engine and portal
> competitors, there is not much difference among
> the news and information
> Web sites covered in the survey. The industry
> score is 73, with
> ABCNews.com in a slight lead at 74 and
> NYTimes.com and USAToday.com
> lagging slightly at 71.
> 
> How do these scores compare with other, more
> traditional businesses?
> Unfortunately, not too well.  While Google's
> score of 80 sounds
> impressive, 80 is also the composite score for
> the entire automotive
> industry, and falls short of the composite
> score for household appliances
> (82).  Both Buick and Maytag outperforming all
> online services, including
> the web search leader, suggests there is still
> significant room for
> improvement in what the ACSI calls the
> "e-business" sector.
> 
> Going forward, the ACSI will issue e-business
> reports twice each year. The
> current report focuses on information-oriented
> e-business websites.  In
> six months, a report will be released on the
> performance of
> transaction-oriented e-commerce sites.
> 
> ACSI News, Portals and Search Engine Scores
> http://www.theacsi.org/second_quarter.htm#epo
> Scores for all companies evaluated in the ACSI
> survey, with data on some
> firms going back to 1995.
> 
> ACSI Commentary by Professor Claes Fornell
>
http://www.theacsi.org/scores_commentaries/commentaries/Q2_02_comm.htm
> Analysis of the ACSI scores, with commentary on
> the implications and
> future trends suggested by the findings.
> 
> NPD Search and Portal Site Study
>
http://www.searchenginewatch.com/sereport/00/07-npd.html
> Findings from an older study that measured
> search success and failure
> rates, among other factors.
> 
> Jupiter Media Metrix Search Engine Ratings
>
http://searchenginewatch.com/reports/mediametrix.html
> Jupiter Media Metrix's quantitative
> measurements for the major search
> services as of March 2002.


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