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.<p>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 the number being 99%.
So obviously 99% is impossibly high, but iPhones (and well made flagship phones in general) being some of the most popular things ever made wouldn’t be very surprising to me. People’s lives revolve around their phones. They’re probably people’s most used item after their bed. And for the most part they work really well. That 20% of people don’t like Thanksgiving and the Shawshank redemption isn’t surprising to me, and I don’t think that means the iPhone couldn’t have higher than 90% approval rating.<p>(Especially since a lot of people who don’t like iPhones would have gone to Androids at this point anyway, so current iPhone customers is a somewhat self selecting demographic)
> 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.<p>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.
"They opened our email 73 times, but didn’t respond."<p>This counter does not work right? I know it is a minor thing, but I immediately stopped reading further. I have a problem...
I have received Apple satisfaction surveys before and the options are basically this:<p>How satisfied are you with your new iPhone?<p>* Insanely satisfied<p>* Extremely satisfied<p>* Very very satisfied<p>* Quite satisfied<p>* Satisfied<p>* Mostly satisfied<p>* Somewhat satisfied<p>* Neither satisfied or dissatisfied<p>* Neutral<p>* No opinion<p>* Dissatisfied<p>I’m exaggerating a little to make my point, but I suspect that’s more or less how they get these insanely high scores. Also I’m not sure they send the satisfaction surveys to everyone. Probably you have to have a history of purchasing Apple products.<p>I don’t think they are manipulating the data itself as this article seems to suggest though. I think the survey methodology itself is skewed.
I can't remember what it's called (Edit: Lizardman's Constant) but around 4 to 20% of people will give nonsense replies to any survey.<p>Like if you asked Are you Human? 4% (or more) of people will reply "No" just for fun, or because they don't read.<p>So you can try to adjust for this by asking a silly question, and if they reply that way ignore their entire survey, but that could lead to issues where they reply correctly on most of it, but false on the "fun" question.
I've yet to use a single iphone that I was satisfied with.<p>My last experience with an iphone was when my GPS began to malfunction and Apple's proposed solution was to have me buy a brand new iphone at no discount.
What is "satisfaction"? Minor gripes are still "satisfaction", IMHO. At the price point I would expect someone not satisfied to return the phone.
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.<p>I'll sure miss sideloading certain apps, but that's the price for a walled garden and security (I guess?).<p>Let's see if I'm going to be one of the "99%"...
The original title, "Apple claims 99% iPhone 14 satisfaction. Is that possible? (No). We investigate" (which this was submitted under originally) is less click-baity than the current version: "Is Apple making implausible iPhone satisfaction claims?"
A number this high is absurd to get in a survey of the general public -- always remember Lizardman's Constant [1].<p>[1] <a href="https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/12/noisy-poll-results-and-reptilian-muslim-climatologists-from-mars/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/12/noisy-poll-results-and...</a>
Any situation where a company can be put in a better position with statistics will 99% of the time lead to the company hiring a statistics firm that favours them.
Is there a legal limit how much you can fake the numbers before you are held accountable? Seems like Apple is pulling a lot of numbers out of their rear end. See also LTT's recent video about Apple quite clearly faking Mac Studio performance numbers: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buLyy7x2dcQ">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buLyy7x2dcQ</a>
At what age is it reasonable to assume that a modern western consumer understands that Marketing routinely uses some torturously contorted standards for "truth"?<p>Family lore: My kid brother was ~5 years old when he bit into a spoonful of a breakfast cereal that he had asked for after having seen it advertised - and unhappily blurted out "it tasted good on TV!".
[This PDF](<a href="http://media.wix.com/ugd/bbfb8a_2ea66bffc09b40d099237bb8381346f1.pdf" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http://media.wix.com/ugd/bbfb8a_2ea66bffc09b40d099237bb83813...</a> ) appears to provide information about their methodology -- noting it was linked from [this article](<a href="https://www.macrumors.com/2015/07/20/apple-watch-tops-iphone-ipad-customer-sat/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.macrumors.com/2015/07/20/apple-watch-tops-iphone...</a> ).<p>In short, it looks like potential-respondents first had to apply (e.g., in response to [this Facebook post](<a href="https://www.facebook.com/Wristly.co/posts/apple-watch-owner-join-our-inner-circle-be-in-the-know-and-help-shape-the-future/372856999575519/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.facebook.com/Wristly.co/posts/apple-watch-owner-...</a> )), 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:<p>> 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.<p>So it doesn't sound like a random sampling of Apple-product users.<p>Anyway, then apparently they ask if a respondent's satisfied with a product, giving 4 options: "<i>Very Satisfied/Delighted</i>", "<i>Somewhat Satisfied</i>","<i>Neither Satisfied or Dissatisfied</i>", and "<i>Somewhat Dissatisfied</i>".<p>Then, they add up the first 2 categories as their "<i>key metric of customer satisfaction</i>".<p>---<p>To note it, [this blog-post](<a href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2018/04/20/iphone-x-customer-satisfaction" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://daringfireball.net/linked/2018/04/20/iphone-x-custom...</a> ) claims to quote "<i>Ben Bajarin, on the result of a survey of iPhone X owners conducted last month</i>" saying:<p>> 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.<p>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.
I'm curious about the stat of the email being opened 73 times. I'm wondering if someone at apple who has access to that contact email address has the option "Protect Mail Activity" turned off on their Apple Mail client or if this is a bug.
Give me an iPhone 5 that’s fast enough to run an os that has all the software bloat we have today. Then, stop adding more bloat to force us to buy newer hardware
There are people who practically worship apple. A new iphone could ship broken and a certain percentage of buyers would praise it as being brilliant. They'll never be unsatisfied with an apple product. There's another group whose satisfaction has nothing to do with the phone itself and everything to do with knowing that it was new and highly expensive and out of reach for many. As long as they can pull it out of their pocket and show it off they'll be happy.<p>Adding to that, people already have a tendency to convince themselves after the fact that an expensive purchase was a good deal, and that companies pay for fake reviews and I'm not surprised iphone reviews seem inflated.