ANN ARBOR ? Yahoo! has taken over the top spot from Google for the first time in the University of Michigan?s American Customer Satisfaction Index report on e-business websites, released Tuesday. The report also showed for the first time customer satisfaction with the e-Business category declined lower than the ASCI national average across all industries.
The annual ACSI e-business report includes measurements of search engines and portals as well as online news and information sites.
Customer satisfaction with the e-business category overall slipped for the first time this year, falling more than a point to 75.2, lower than the ACSI national average across all industries (75.3) and the latest ACSI average score for e-commerce companies (80).
Yahoo?s customer satisfaction score of 79 on the ACSI?s 100-point scale is up almost 4 percent this year, while Google slipped 3.7 percent to 78, their second yearly decline in a row.
?Even more important than Yahoo?s first lead over Google is the trend of their scores moving in opposite directions,? said Larry Freed, online satisfaction expert and President and CEO of ForeSee Results, which sponsors the ACSI e-business report. ?Since the ACSI is a leading indicator of financial performance on the macro scale and at the company level, we may see a real turnaround for Yahoo! in the next year.?
Ask.com (75) posted this year?s biggest increase and AOL.com the biggest decline, down more than 9 percent to 67. MSN.com (75) is up only one point this year.
?Ask.com is making huge inroads on the other competitors in the portal and search engine category,? said Freed. ?And it has done this despite a second relaunch this year, which was apparently carried off so well that it didn?t have the usual backlash of dropping customer satisfaction scores. Ask.com has mastered the crucial mix of evolution and revolution.?
In addition to measuring portals and search engines, the annual e-business report measures news and information sites ABCNews.com (74), MSNBC.com (74), CNN.com (73), NYTimes.com (73) and USAToday.com (72).
?There is no clear winner in the news and information space, as all of the sites have difficulty in differentiating themselves from the pack and leveraging the unique personalities that exist in their traditional channels,? Freed said.
Customer satisfaction with the e-business category overall slipped for the first time this year, falling more than a point to 75.2, lower than the ACSI national average across all industries (75.3) and the latest ACSI average score for e-commerce companies (80).
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