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Is Apple making implausible iPhone satisfaction claims?

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Re: Is Apple making implausible iPhone satisfaction claims?

#41
post #28
post #10

"They opened our email 73 times, but didn’t respond." This counter does not work right? I know it is a minor thing, but I immediately stopped reading further. I have a problem...

Later on they said they use Mailtrack [0]. I looked at their FAQ and they just use a tracking pixel. I don't really think that mail clients in a coorporate environment (i.e. Apple) download external images automatically. Mailtrack seems to be confident, that only 5-10% of recipients aren't "trackable" [1], but I haven't seen a mail client that by default downloads external media in a while. [0] https://mailtrack.io […

The Windows Mail app still does this by default. And I know folks that use it over the thick Outlook in corporate environments. (Yikes, I know.)

Re: Is Apple making implausible iPhone satisfaction claims?

#43
post #7

They are using Google reviews as proxy for customer satisfaction. I really can't take rest of the article seriously after that, knowing anyone can leave a review at Google and there's no guarantee they own the phone. Sure, 99% satisfaction rate is pretty much impossible, but if all Apple asked was "are you satisfied with iPhone 14" with "yes" & "not at all" options and only surveyed iPhone 14 owners, I can easily see…

Yeah, especially when you consider that Apple likely uses NetPromoter as its primary metric for customer satisfaction. NetPromoter only sends out surveys to verified purchasers and the question is a 1-10 scale for satisfaction. Anything 8-10 is “satisfactory”. This is not only plausible but likely and is why the rating is so high. There wouldn’t be very many anomalous responses of people not understanding the question because the question is literally “Would you recommend the iPhone (whatever model) to friends and family?”. That’s not a hard question to understand.

This is not a seriously written article.

Re: Is Apple making implausible iPhone satisfaction claims?

#44
Prime Day I bought my first iPhone, iPhone 14, with a good discount and cashback, I was between it and Zenfone 9. Not sure what to expect in general to be honest, but I expect a good battery life and updates, these were two factors that contributed to my final choice.

I'll sure miss sideloading certain apps, but that's the price for a walled garden and security (I guess?).

Let's see if I'm going to be one of the "99%"...

Re: Is Apple making implausible iPhone satisfaction claims?

#45
> Trader Joe’s fans will stand in line for hours for groceries but still give the store just an 84% satisfaction rating, according to a survey by the American Customer Satisfaction Institute.

It’s tough competition, but I think this is the most absurd sentence in the article. Nevermind the difference between a premium consumer good and a grocery store, my takeaway is that reported satisfaction could be much higher among TJ shoppers without the hours long waits.

Re: Is Apple making implausible iPhone satisfaction claims?

#46
[This PDF](http://media.wix.com/ugd/bbfb8a_2ea66bffc09b40d099237bb83813... ) appears to provide information about their methodology -- noting it was linked from [this article](https://www.macrumors.com/2015/07/20/apple-watch-tops-iphone... ).

In short, it looks like potential-respondents first had to apply (e.g., in response to [this Facebook post](https://www.facebook.com/Wristly.co/posts/apple-watch-owner-... )), and then they pre-screened potential-respondents.. and it sounds like respondents may have had some sort of a weekly commitment?, as the document includes:

> To finish, a big thank you to the 1,100+ strong members of the Wristly Inner Circle- we wouldn’t be able to learn so much so fast about the Apple Watch without your weekly contribution.

So it doesn't sound like a random sampling of Apple-product users.

Anyway, then apparently they ask if a respondent's satisfied with a product, giving 4 options: "Very Satisfied/Delighted", "Somewhat Satisfied","Neither Satisfied or Dissatisfied", and "Somewhat Dissatisfied".

Then, they add up the first 2 categories as their "key metric of customer satisfaction".

---

To note it, [this blog-post](https://daringfireball.net/linked/2018/04/20/iphone-x-custom... ) claims to quote "Ben Bajarin, on the result of a survey of iPhone X owners conducted last month" saying:

> When it came to overall customer satisfaction, iPhone X owners in our study gave the product an overall 97% customer satisfaction. [...] Just to contrast that with the original Apple Watch research with Wristly I was involved in, 66% of Apple Watch owners indicated they were very satisfied with Apple Watch, a product which also ranked a 97% customer satisfaction number in the first Apple Watch study we did.

Point being that, while the above PDF appears to talk about the Apple Watch, it sounds like they're strongly implying that the customer-satisfaction figures for the iPhone were largely done in a similar manner -- and, at least in the case of the above-quoted speaker, by some of the same people.

Re: Is Apple making implausible iPhone satisfaction claims?

#47

I have received Apple satisfaction surveys before and the options are basically this: How satisfied are you with your new iPhone? * Insanely satisfied * Extremely satisfied * Very very satisfied * Quite satisfied * Satisfied * Mostly satisfied * Somewhat satisfied * Neither satisfied or dissatisfied * Neutral * No opinion * Dissatisfied I’m exaggerating a little to make my point, but I suspect that’s more or less how…

Hey - I'm the post author.

Thank you for reading! I don't think they are manipulating the data, rather that they are surveying an unrepresentative population of tech enthusiasts, and presenting it as if representative of the entire customer base.

Re: Is Apple making implausible iPhone satisfaction claims?

#48

A number this high is absurd to get in a survey of the general public -- always remember Lizardman's Constant [1]. [1] https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/12/noisy-poll-results-and...

It’s not a survey of the general public, though. That’s why the OP article is nonsense. This is most-likely a NetPromoter survey. It is a survey of verified iPhone purchasers/owners just after the 14 day return window who decided to keep it. It’s self-selective but it’s not unattainable like the article claims.

Re: Is Apple making implausible iPhone satisfaction claims?

#49

What is "satisfaction"? Minor gripes are still "satisfaction", IMHO. At the price point I would expect someone not satisfied to return the phone.

For what alternative? My 14 Pro is way too big, and the camera software is meh, but the lower models have really nerfed cameras and I'm too entangled in the Apple ecosystem to switch to Android even if there were better options. 80% satisfaction seems reasonable, most people seem to like the big phones, and 20% of people with some major complaint or other sounds plausible.

Re: Is Apple making implausible iPhone satisfaction claims?

#50
post #46

[This PDF]( http://media.wix.com/ugd/bbfb8a_2ea66bffc09b40d099237bb83813... ) appears to provide information about their methodology -- noting it was linked from [this article]( https://www.macrumors.com/2015/07/20/apple-watch-tops-iphone... ). In short, it looks like potential-respondents first had to apply (e.g., in response to [this Facebook post]( https://www.facebook.com/Wristly.co/posts/apple-watch-owner-... ))…

Apple is NPD manifested as a corporation. Everything they do is self-gratifying, so of course also this.

"All-new"... Pffft.

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