iPhone, Android, Pre Leads in Customer Satisfaction Study

Smartphones with consumer-oriented functionality score best in a customer satisfaction study released today from CFI Group. A new generation of smartphone, lead by Apple’s iPhone and including Google’s Android and Palm Pre, is bringing in a new customer audience no longer dominated by business users. The CFI Group Smartphone Satisfaction Study, based on surveys of more than 1,000 smartphone users, also finds little relationship between smartphone satisfaction and satisfaction with the provider. Moreover, exclusivity contracts may have drawbacks for carriers if they invite customers drawn to the device and not the provider.Using the methodology of the American Customer Satisfaction Index to compare smartphone platforms, the iPhone is the undisputed leader in customer satisfaction, scoring 83 on a 100-point scale, 8% higher than its nearest competitors, Android and the Pre (77). Smartphones popular among business users, like Research In Motion’s BlackBerry (73) and Palm’s Treo (70), trail significantly in customer satisfaction, while the “others” category, which includes Symbian and Windows Mobile, scores 66.