Microsoft’s Customer Satisfaction Score Drops in 1st Quarter

The latest data by the University of Michigan’s American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) show that customer satisfaction with Microsoft fell during the past year. This is the second year the ACSI has measured Microsoft and the broader computer software industry.

For the first quarter of this year the rating for the industry as a whole was down one point from the first quarter of 2006, scoring 73 out of a possible 100 points. For Microsoft, the customer satisfaction rating declined from 73 to 70.

This rating placed the software giant below top-rated FedEx (84), Olive Garden (80), Starbucks (78) the U.S. Postal Service (77) and about 40 other companies. Consumers were more satisfied with Microsoft than with broadcast TV news (67), the newspaper industry (66), airlines (63) and cable television providers (56).

“A year ago, the world’s leading software producer was even with the rest of the industry; now it is behind in customer satisfaction,” wrote the index’s publishers. “Much of this seems to have to do with its new operating system, Windows Vista, and the new Office Suite which were both released in January.”

The bottom line: Microsoft’s new Vista operating system and Office suite of business applications appear to be having a negative effect on customer satisfaction.