Could iPhone really have 99% customer satisfaction?

Back in May, we saw an interesting report from PerfectRec on the highest-rated iPhone models by consumers over the last 12 years. iPhone 13 ended up being the winner with 80% of users rating it at 5/5 stars. Now the firm has looked into Apple’s claim that iPhone has had a 99% customer satisfaction rate for the last seven years and concluded that it’s “nearly statistically impossible.” So what’s going on? Read along for what research firm PerfectRec thinks is happening.

When I wrote up the story in May about 600,000+ users rating their own iPhone over the years, I included the metric that Apple shares pretty much every quarter on its earnings call that independent firm 451 Research found iPhone satisfaction to be at 99%.

This caught the eye of analyst Wally Nowinski at PerfectRec and he decided to dig further into what could be happening for Apple to get that score.

Now Wally has published a deep dive into the matter on PefectRec. A number of factors have led him and PerfectRec founder and economist Joe Golden to believe that 451 Research is “likely using a highly unrepresentative sample of tech enthusiasts and early adopters to generate extraordinary satisfaction numbers that Apple then presents as representative of consumers generally.”

Here are Wally’s highlights from his research:

• In its May earnings call, Apple claimed that the iPhone 14 had a 99% customer satisfaction rating citing 451 Research, a third-party research firm it hired. This was a satisfaction survey, not a Net Promoter survey. (Updated 7/14/23). 
• Apple has made a similar claim in every single earnings call for the past seven years. 
• A customer satisfaction rating this high is nearly impossible to find using traditional survey methods and a representative sample. 
• Independent sources find iPhone satisfaction ratings significantly lower than what Apple claims. 
• Apple’s claimed iPhone satisfaction is far higher than what other consumer companies and brands claim for beloved products. 
• We asked Apple’s press team to explain how the company arrived at these results. They opened our email 73 times, but didn’t respond. 

With all of that in mind, Wally says “Our best guess is that Apple wants to make bold customer satisfaction claims, and has hired a third-party research firm that will produce those numbers to make them seem more credible – and perhaps to provide plausible deniability.”

Explaining more about why a 99% satisfaction rate is nearly impossible, Joe Golden said:

“Even if every single person actually loved their iPhone it would still be nearly impossible to find near unanimous satisfaction using traditional survey methods,” said economist and PerfectRec founder Joe Golden. “A few percent of people just won’t understand the question, or will give the wrong response by mistake,” Golden said.

Continuing, Wally says:

And even if it’s not by mistake, a few percent of respondents like to give strange and contrarian answers to pollsters. Scott Alexander called this phenomenon Lizardman’s Constant, in reference to the 4% of survey respondents who told researchers the world was run by lizard men. (Added 7/14/2023).

Another interesting example of how difficult a 99% would be to earn, “the three most popular movies of all time on IMDB are The Shawshank Redemption, The Godfather and The Dark Knight. They have ratings of 9.2, 9.2 and 9.0 respectively.”

And independent research on iPhone satisfaction this year from ASCI puts iPhone at 81% – considerably below 451’s 99%.

• iPhone edges out Samsung in satisfaction survey; ties with soft drinks and shoes

Interestingly, with Apple opening Wally’s email asking about the 99% satisfaction rating over 73 times and not responding, this could be a tough one for Apple to explain.

What do you think about the 451 Research iPhone satisfaction ratings? Share your thoughts in the comments!

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