year end assessment of smart phones customers perceptions

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State of the Smart Phone Union Address

With Black Friday and Cyber Monday behind us this year, it is the time to assess how customers felt about their smart phones experiences.

Firstly we look at the market segmented by the OS family: Android, Blackberry, Apple, Win Mobile and Palm OS to measure overall customer

satisfaction (CSI).

The chart on the left shows that Average Customer Satisfaction

(diamond sign) of Blackberry OS users is higher than any other

OS’s and is above customers’ expectations. Horizontal black line

inside grey boxes is a Median value of Customer Satisfaction index

that shows Android, Apple and Blackberry smart phones in a dead

heat.

The size of grey boxes represents distribution of opinions. Apple

OS is a clear leader in terms of consistency of their user

experience; however it is worth of a note that only 2 Apple models

have been measured for this study compared to 16 Android and

18 Blackberry phones. Win Mobile is a laggard, closely followed

by Palm OS with average CSI score that indicates customer

disappointment. Most reviews analyzed for this study are

expressing opinions that precede Win 7 version of the Mobile OS and it would be interesting to see whether the new version will meet better

the customer expectations. At this time we could not yet aggregate statistically representative number of Maemo customer reviews to

produce meaningful metrics.

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Palm OS Win Mobile

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The chart on the right illustrates customer satisfaction with smart

phone brands. Here we can see that Samsung significantly

outperforms the other brands. Blackberry is the only other brand

that on average exceeds their customers’ expectations while Apple

and Motorola provide nearly satisfactory experience. LG disappoints

their customers most, with Palm and HTC close behind. Further

analysis uncovers that while all brands seem to exceed their

customer’s expectations with functionality of their smart phones,

most disappoint them with their reliability and support.

We selected five brands that have higher median customer

satisfaction scores – Samsung, Blackberry, Apple, Motorola and

HTC to compare their models that scored at the top of their

brands. These phones are Samsung Captivate, Blackberry Torch,

Apple iPhone4, Motorola Droid X and HTC Droid Incredible.

It is not surprising to see iPhone4 on the bottom of Customer

Satisfaction ratings if you consider the expectations raised by the

Apple, extremely enthusiastic and opinionated funs and the PR

exposure this product has raised – it is very difficult, if not

impossible to live to such expectations, and it shows here.

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Customer Satisfaction Index

Samsung Captivate Score

BlackBerry Torch Score

iPhone 4 Score

Motorola Droid X Score

HTC Droid Incredible Score




It is useful to focus on specific attributes of experience with these phones

as they are described by their customers and measure how these

experiences differ from their expectations. Infamous issue with the

iPhone4 antenna has created a relatively strong “signal” in customer

reviews and has affected negatively its Reliability rating. The rest of the

phones either exceeded their customers’ expectations, like the Torch and

the Captivate, who described them as “durable” and “working flawlessly”,

or satisfied them like the Droids. The iPhone4 users frequently report

“AT&T sim chip failures”, “The iPhone 4 [is not stable] as it frequently makes an

audible "death rattle" noise” and “just died” experiences. Many iPhone4 customers

blame AT&T rather than Apple, but the Torch is also available now only on AT&T

network and their users do not report the same problems.

Customer Support is another measurement that directly affects

customer satisfaction and it includes support experiences from

retailers, carriers and phones manufacturers. Closer look reveals

that most negative remarks (over 60%) are in reference to the

experiences with carriers Customer Service organizations. While

Blackberry Torch and Samsung Captivate customers report about

positive or satisfactory experience, Motorola Droid X, HTC Droid

and Apple iPhone4 customers are disappointed to a various degree.

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Reliability Samsung Captivate Score


iPhone 4 Score



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Customer Support



iPhone 4 Score






The detailed view of the attributes comparison reveals the following:

all of these smart phones satisfy or delight their customers with Battery Life, except HTC Droid Incredible that came short of their

customers’ expectations – “terribly short battery life”;

Motorola Droid X got negative score for Camera & Video experience because some of their customers had expectations of the front

end camera functionality that did not

materialized;

All these phones delighted their

customers with their Usability, Games

Experience, Screen Quality and Touch

Screen experience;

Samsung Captivate, Blackberry

Torch and HTC Droid Incredible

disappointed their customers who report

frequent Freeze problems;

It appears that the customers

desire slimmer headset design without

sacrificing the screen size. Only Motorola

Droid X avoided “bulky” characterization

by their customers;

Apple and HTC customers

expressed disappointments with

Reception Quality of their calls;

Samsung delighted their

customers most with Price/Value of

their purchase.

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iPhone 4 Score






Product Attributes Comparison Dashboard

Samsung Captivate BlackBerry Torch iPhone4 Motorola Droid X HTC Droid Incredible

Score Opinions Score Opinions Score Opinions Score Opinions Score Opinions

Negative Positive Negative Positive Negative Positive Negative Positive Negative Positive

Reliability 1.28 39% 61% 1.39 32% 68% 0.91 58% 42% 0.98 59% 41% 1.01 54% 46%

Battery Life 1.01 49% 51% 1.18 36% 64% 1.23 24% 76% 1.03 48% 52% 0.57 93% 7%

Camera & Video 1.65 0% 100% 1.66 0% 100% 1.64 0% 100% 0.36 100% 0% 1.52 0% 100%

Usability 1.61 14% 86% 1.65 10% 90% 1.68 11% 89% 1.62 17% 83% 1.77 4% 96%

Keyboard 1.12 25% 75% 1.19 15% 85% 0.94 57% 43% 1.30 0% 100% 1.03 50% 50%

Games experience 1.78 2% 98% 1.73 0% 100% 1.58 13% 88% 1.11 25% 175% 1.06 0% 100%

Screen quality 1.44 0% 100% 1.38 17% 83% 1.54 4% 96% 1.38 0% 100% 1.58 5% 95%

Touch Screen 1.15 0% 100% 1.25 16% 84% 1.30 0% 100% 1.27 17% 83% 1.21 26% 74%

Freeze 0.53 100% 0% 0.58 97% 3% 1.00 0% 0% 1.00 0% 100% 0.80 100% 0%

Bulky 0.69 100% 0% 0.46 100% 0% 0.73 100% 0% 1.02 13% 88% 0.92 100% 0%

Browser 1.00 50% 50% 1.22 24% 76% 1.18 0% 100% 1.51 0% 100% 1.20 14% 86%

Customer Support 1.01 48% 52% 1.10 38% 63% 0.61 83% 17% 0.91 68% 32% 0.90 62% 38%

OS Software 1.15 0% 100% 1.01 17% 83% 1.17 32% 68% 1.36 0% 100% 1.20 0% 100%

Antenna 1.00 50% 50% 1.00 50% 50% 0.66 96% 4% 1.00 50% 50% 0.88 100% 0%

Reception quality 1.11 25% 75% 1.37 17% 83% 0.91 64% 36% 1.43 10% 90% 0.92 59% 41%

Price/Value 1.56 9% 91% 1.10 43% 57% 0.84 84% 16% 0.92 71% 29% 1.01 55% 45%

Analysis Methodology: For this study we aggregated consumer-generated reviews published through December 5, 2010 on multiple

popular public sites. This data was analyzed with our proprietary Opinion Miner® software. The complete data set of competitive

products, services and brands selected by Amplified Analytics’ customers is collected, monitored for updates, processed and analyzed

through a paid arrangement. Source Data and attributes analysis for each model is available by request at [email protected]


http://www.amplifiedanalytics.com/Wom-Request?return_url=/Word-of-Mouth-Analysis

year end assessment of smart phones customers perceptions

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