Apple iPhone owners are the most satisfied with their smartphones, new research conducted by Consulta has found.
The latest South African Customer Satisfaction Index (SAcsi) for Mobile Handsets found that local mobile handset users are most satisfied with the iPhone, followed by Huawei users and those with Samsung phones.
“Although Apple and Samsung have maintained their dominance in the minds of their customers, Huawei has made strong inroads to grow its market share since last year,” said Consulta CEO Adré Schreuder in a statement.
“Apple’s brand perception across a variety of linked devices such as tablets, laptops and watches has contributed to customers viewing it as a high-quality brand that meets their needs in a reliable way. However, Huawei is looking to firmly establish its reputation as a premium product as it increases its service and maintenance footprint in South Africa.”
With an overall SAcsi score of 84, Apple is well above the industry average of 79.7 and 0.5 points ahead of its 2016 score of 83.5.
Huawei ranks second with a 4.1-point jump to 81.3, followed by Samsung, which scored 80.4 (up 0.9 points since 2016).
Other handset manufacturers — including the likes of Sony, BlackBerry and LG among others — saw an overall decline in customer satisfaction to 75.1 in 2017, down from 77.5 in 2016 and 82.4 in 2015. There were not adequate samples for brands in the “other” category to be individually detailed.
Consulta measures the satisfaction score based on brands exceeding or falling short of customer expectations and the respondents’ idea of the ideal product to achieve an overall result out of 100. The measurement also includes, among other things, a customer expectations index, a perceived quality index and a perceived value index. The sample included 1 405 mobile phone users who were randomly selected to participate in the survey.
Complaints
Overall industry customer loyalty has increased from 71.6% in 2015 to 72.3% in the 2017 survey, after dropping to 70.2% in 2016. However, in that same period, Apple experienced a decline from its 2015 high of 80.9%, to 76.1% in 2016 and 77.9% in 2017. While Apple customers remain the most loyal, the survey revealed that their biggest complaints were about the time taken to download software updates, data usage and service quality (repairs).
Samsung is marginally down from its 2015 loyalty score of 75.1%, although its score is up from 73.7% in 2016 to 74.1% in 2017.
Customer loyalty to Huawei, which was first measured in 2016, has jumped from 65.6% to 73.4% in 2017. The loyalty level in the rest of the industry has dropped markedly from 75.2% in 2015 to 67.2% in 2016 and 64.4% in 2017, largely due to the demise of BlackBerry, which historically held significant market share in South Africa.
A popular metric for measuring a brand’s performance is the Net Promoter Score (NPS), which measures the likelihood that customers will recommend a brand to their family and friends (promoters) compared to customers who would actively discourage a relationship with the brand (detractors), Consulta said.
Apple achieved the highest NPS of 55%, which is 11.7% higher than the industry average of 43.3%. Huawei scored the next highest NPS of 49%, followed by Samsung on 45%. The rest of the industry scored a collective NPS of a low 29%. — © 2017 NewsCentral Media
