Apple remains top dog for tablet and PC customer satisfaction

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iPhone 11 Pro in store with customers (Image credit: Apple)

What you need to know

  • iPads and Macs came out in top spot.
  • Samsung was the closest follower.
  • Around 300,000 people were questioned for the report.

Apple customers continue to be pretty happy with their Mac and iPad purchases, giving the company top spot in a new American Customer Satisfaction Index report. It was compiled after the ACSI spoke with around 300,000 people to ask whether they were satisfied with their purchases.

Apple found itself the winner with an 83% satisfaction rating, beating out Samsung at 81%. Amazon rounded out the top three with 79%.

In the overall industry rankings, Apple stays on top for a second year with a stable and high ACSI score of 83, and its customers have by far the highest expectations. Despite a 1% downturn, Samsung keeps second place at 81 and no longer ties with Amazon, which falls much further. Amazon tumbles 4% to 79, just a point above the industry average. Among the three leaders, Apple demonstrates an advantage across all aspects of the customer experience, but it still lags both Samsung and Amazon for value.

While Apple found itself at the top of the pile for personal computers, the ACSI report notes that Samsung is the "industry leader" in the desktop segment ahead of Apple. It's only when tablets and notebooks are brought into the fold that Apple's score pushed it to the summit.

Apple CEO Tim Cook has become infamous for his love of a high customer satisfaction score and has previously used it on-stage during product announcements. It's easy to see why it's such an important metric for Cook, with satisfied customers more likely to become repeat customers as well.

Oliver Haslam
Contributor

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too. Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.