Samsung Phone Surpasses Apple, BlackBerry in Customer Satisfaction

In what could be another indicator that Apple is losing its steel grip on the smartphone market, the two phones with the highest customer satisfaction this past year were both made by Samsung. According to a study from the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), which was conducted before the release of the Galaxy S 4, the Galaxy S III and Note II tied for first place in customer satisfaction in 2013 with scores of 84 out of 100.

The iPhone 5, on the other hand, received a score of 82, which was high enough for it to come in next in the rankings. Strangely enough, the iPhone 4S received identical scores, with the iPhone 4 receiving a score only one point lower. This seems to indicate that new versions of the iPhone don’t offer much more to customers than the previous versions, which could lead to issues with unhappy or unsatisfied customers.

Both sets of phones received much higher marks than average, with the mean score for smartphones coming in at 76. Despite Samsung beating Apple with individual phones, its overall rating was still significantly lower than Apple’s; Samsung scored a 76 while Apple scored an 81. This is due in part to Samsung offering a variety of feature phones, which score significantly lower in customer satisfaction than smartphones. Apple, on the other hand, deals exclusively in smartphones.

The exception to the rule of customers being more satisfied with smartphones than feature phones occurred when the smartphone was from BlackBerry. Both BlackBerry phones that were ranked in the study, the Curve and the Bold, actually ranked below the average feature phone, with scores of 67 and 64 respectively.

Although Apple and Samsung smartphones seem to be on just about equal ground, with BlackBerry lagging far behind, these stats don’t tell the entire story. Apple’s overall score dropped two percent from 2012, while Samsung’s rose by seven percent. If this trend continues, Samsung will soon be on its way to becoming the customer favorite that Apple once was.