Facebook Loses Face Over Customer Satisfaction Survey

Palo Alto, CA, United States (AHN) – On the face of it, social networking site Facebook appears to be the one of the most prolific websites in its domain but a recent customer satisfaction survey has revealed that the site scored poorly in terms of satisfied customers. Veteran sites such as Google and Yahoo scored far better with 80 and 76 points, respectively, on a scale of 100, while Facebook scored just 64.

The survey, called the 2010 American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), took stock of 30 online companies. MySpace, owned by NewsCorp, came in even lower, with a score of 63.

The survey, developed by the University of Michigan’s business school, found Facebook users were concerned about their privacy, frequent design changes and aggressive advertising, which has hurt the “social” status of Facebook.

Despite generating low customer-satisfaction ratings, the site has continued to attract new members and advertisers alike. After facing a plethora of user complaints in the year gone by, Facebook simplified its privacy settings so that people could protect their personal information better.

This is reflected in the climbing user numbers, with the number in the U.S. alone climbing 84 percent in the past year. In fact, Facebook is set to announce a milestone later this week, that of reaching the 500 million user mark.

The site scored the same ranking as several airlines and cable companies, two other groups that often fare low on customer-satisfaction.

In a reply to the survey findings, Facebook said, “We haven’t reviewed the survey methodology in detail, but clearly we have room to improve. Building a simple, useful service is the best way to earn and sustain the trust people put in us. That’s why we spend so much of our time and energy focused on improving the products we offer and introducing new ones.”

The highest score among social-media companies was 77 for Wikipedia and 73 for Google’s YouTube.

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