By Surojit Chatterjee: Subscribe to Surojit's RSS feed
July 22, 2010 5:20 AM EDT
Facebook, despite being the world's No.1 social networking site, ranks poorly at consumer satisfaction, according to a survey, lagging most internet and social networking sites and even the IRS.
The University of Michigan's 2010 American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) E-Business report gave Facebook 64 on its 100-point scale, a ranking lower than that of the IRS and in the bottom 5 percent of all the private companies the report measured, which included airlines and cable companies.
The survey conducted by ForeSee Results said consumers ranked Facebook so low, putting it in the same range as airlines and cable companies, two groups that typically score low on satisfaction surveys, is probably because its trustworthiness is "abysmally low."
"Facebook is a phenomenal success, so we were not expecting to see it score so poorly with consumers," said ForeSee Results CEO Larry Freed, in a statement.
"They've had this great growth - you can't say anything negative about that. (But) Low satisfaction means you're starting to put that growth at risk," Freed said.
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According to Freed, "privacy concerns, frequent changes to the website, and commercialization and advertising" are responsible for the low rating.
"There is no shortage of complaints about Facebook," the report, based on a survey of 70,000 people who rank 223 companies in 45 industries in terms of consumer satisfaction, noted. Only 10 of the 223 companies in the survey scored 65 or lower.
The report said Google scored a high 80 points, followed by Wikipedia and Microsoft's Bing at 77 each. Though Google managed to edge out Bing, this year's ACSI rating is Google's lowest since 2002, when the search site was first indexed.
Google can dismiss Bing at its own peril, ForeSee Results said. "Bing's first measure is impressive and could put some pressure on Google. The new search engine is already making gains in market share and using clever marketing and advertising to distinguish itself from the market leader," it said.
Other notable sites, which scored above Facebook were Yahoo (76 points), YouTube (73 points), MSNBC.com (74 points), AOL.com (74 points), CNN.com (73 points) and Ask.com (73 points).
The only social networking site to rank below Facebook was News Corp.-owned MySpace (63 points).
However, despite ranking poorly in consumer satisfaction, nothing seems to prevent people from flocking to Facebook, which reportedly has topped the 500 million user mark.
According to the report, the reason is because Facebook has a monopoly. It states that "Although there are literally hundreds of social networking sites around the world, [...] there really is no other choice for people wanting to connect with friends, family, and colleagues regardless of interest, age, geographic location, gender."
Another reason could be because younger users are less bothered about privacy concerns and changes to the interface.
"Customers are willing to suffer through a poor experience in return for the benefits Facebook provides," ForeSee said. "This is a rare scenario in the American economy: usually customer satisfaction is intertwined with market success."
"Facebook is the dominant social network," said Dan Olds, an analyst at Gabriel Consulting Group Inc. "The site definitely has been hurt by the turmoil surrounding their privacy policies but there really isn't a strong alternative right now. So even though their customer satisfaction scores suck, users are going to continue to flock there because Facebook is where their friends are."
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