Report: The PC Buying Experience, 2011
July 5, 2011 2 Comments
We just published a new Temkin Group report, The PC Buying Experience, 2011.
Do you want to know how consumers chose computers and the difference between Apple buyers and others? Or the differences in channels that they use?
Here’s the executive summary:
Computers have become a standard appliance in most households, but why aren’t they easy to buy? This report analyzes the buying process of 842 US consumers that have recently purchased a computer. Apple is the leader across the buying experience but Dell and HP are not far behind. This report compares the customer satisfaction of the leading computer suppliers in five stages of the consumers buying process. It also examines influences and decision factors on the consumer buying decision by major PC manufacturer. Key findings are that Apple consumers care more about customer service than PC buyers, consumers that buy PCs directly from the manufacturer are more satisfied than those that buy at a retailer and Best Buy employees are more helpful than those at other retailers.
As you can see from the following graphic (one of the 10 figures in the report), Apple’s largest satisfaction gap with PC makers shows up in customer service and the smallest gaps are with the buying process and with the computer itself.
The report also examines this data by PC brands. That analysis shows that HP and Dell are much more competitive with Apple than are “other” PC makes. HP outpaces Apple when it comes to the process of purchasing the computer and Dell is only one percentage point behind Apple when it comes to the ease of setting up a computer. Buyers of all three brands are equally satisfied with the computer they purchased.
The bottom line: Apple leads customer service expectations and delivery
P.S. For more information on customer experience ratings of computer companies, see the post: Why Did Apple Do So Poorly? which highlights the results of 10 computer makers in the 2011 Temkin Experience Ratings
Why the lines between the points in the chart? If you interpolate the satisfaction level for somewhere between “information for selecting the right computer model” and “process of purchasing the computer”, what does this value represent?
This is an awesome article!