The E-Business Report released by the American Customer Satisfaction Index reveals that Pinterest and Google are on top in their respective fields.
Based on the report, the trend is that customer satisfaction has increased with social media, online search engines, and news and opinions websites, leading to an increase of 2.9 percent in customer satisfaction for e-business websites and posting a score of 73.4 out of 100.
ACSI Chairman Claes Fornell stated that despite improvements in the categories, e-businesses, and especially social media websites, are not doing well in satisfying customers.
Fornell adds that industries with low scores for customer satisfaction do not usually grow as strong as what e-businesses are experiencing. However, despite the growth, it looks like several major companies are beginning to realize the importance of customer satisfaction to their long-term goals.
As per ACSI, websites on social media are among the companies that have been performing the worst in customer satisfaction. However, improvements have been made, with a 4.4 percent increase to a score of 71 this year.
Social media websites are the fourth-lowest category, ahead of airlines, which has a 69 rating, subscription TV, which has a 65 rating, and Internet service providers, which has the lowest rating of 63.
Pinterest is at the top of the social media category, having a score of 76 that represents a 6 percent increase compared to last year. Improved features, including search functions, have propelled Pinterest to the top of its category for the first time.
Second in the category is Wikipedia with a score of 74, and tied for third are YouTube, Reddit, Instagram and Tumblr with scores of 73.
Facebook and LinkedIn scored the worst in the category, with ratings of 63.
Customer satisfaction on search engines and portals also increased, at a rate of 5.3 percent to an average score of 80.
Google made a major contribution to the score, increasing its score by 8 percent to garner a rating of 83. The company boasts of some of the best satisfied users in the ACSI, with the massive gap between it and its competitors as a sign that Google is not letting go of its top spot in the category any time soon. The company's major competitors did not do too well, as Bing scored 4 percent lower to 73, which is the same score by MSN. Yahoo's score decreased by 7 percent to 71, which is its lowest score in the ACSI so far, while AOL is at the bottom of the big search engines at 70.
USATODAY.com increased its score by 4 percent to 76, which makes it tied with FOXNews.com for the first time at the top of the news and opinion websites category. While most of the bigger media companies recorded declines in customer satisfaction, smaller news websites have picked up the slack for the category, collectively increasing their score by 7 percent to 77.
