The consequences of making one decision customers don’t like can kill satisfaction. Here’s serious proof.
Netflix raised prices, divided services and confused customers in the last year. Then the company’s customer satisfaction dropped 14% — a decline that influenced this quarter’s American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), which was released today.
The ACSI, which studies certain industries each quarter, overall score went up just 0.1% this quarter to 75.8 on the 100-point scale, despite a growing economy.
Researchers looked at e-commerce closely, and Netflix’s huge drop to 74 held back the industry as a whole as far as customer satisfaction ratings. Amazon topped the e-commerce companies rated with an 86. Other strongholds, such as Overstock, E*TRADE Financial Corp., The Charles Schwab Corp. and eBay held their usual scores near 80.
Netflix was tied at the top with Amazon last year. To avoid a drop in satisfaction like Netflix faced, try talking to customers in focus groups, surveys and casual conversations with agents to find out what they think of proposed changes before making them.
