This analysis of customer reviews for Kindle Fire vs Asus Transformer Prime shows the attributes of customer experience that are the most important to the customers and how their experience meets their expectations. Click on the image of dashboard to make it larger.

This analysis is based on 30,670 customer reviews of 108 tablets published online by December 24th 2011.

To insure statistical representation and accuracy of results, we have focused on 18 tablets that were reviewed at least 100 times this year. That may mean that some tablets that were introduced toward the end of the year did not qualify for this report.

We have studied before the correlation between number of reviews published online and a number of units shipped, and therefore found it important to use it for comparison.

The most customer-reviewed tablet of 2011 are Amazon Kindle Fire (3,572), Apple iPad 1 and 2 (2,302 combined) and HP TouchPad (970).

Amazon Kindle Fire announcement dominated media and not surprisingly received a disproportional number of customer feedback after it was released.  It’s value proposition and content availability are highly anticipated to make long expected dent in iPad market supremacy. The number of reviews seem to predict that this is the case.

Even though Kindle Fire OS is build on the Android platform, it has sufficient proprietary layer to view it separately from a more common versions.

From the date of TouchPad introduction the WebOS customers were the most satisfied lot (1.39) and the uncertainty about its future does not seem to extinguish their enthusiasm. Apple iPad customers are very close behind at (1.35). It is interesting to note that iPad 2 version of iOS have substantially improved its overall average satisfaction score.

The Kindle Fire OS experience score falls 0.03 points behind the Android, which is well within the margin of error, while both somewhat exceeded their customers’ expectations.

Our Market Intelligence Analysis of the tablet segment indicates that the following attributes of customer experience are most important to them:

1. Usability – 11.45% of all opinions expressed
2. Reliability – 9.45% of all opinions expressed
3. Price – 3.21% of all opinions expressed
4. Screen – 2.89% of all opinions expressed
5. Sound Quality – 2.52% of all opinions expressed
6. Compact Size – 2.10% of all opinions expressed
7. Screen Size – 1.70% of all opinions expressed
8. Battery Life – 1.63% of all opinions expressed
9. Customer Support – 1.40% of all opinions expressed
10. Operating System – 0.95% of all opinions expressed

You can get more detailed explanation of Attributes and Importance by watching this short video.

In terms of overall satisfaction, Samsung Galaxy tablet (7″) has earned the top customer satisfaction rating (1.53) and Huawei Ideo 7 tablet (1.50) came within a statistical tie, while Archos 7 Home tablet (0.82) and Velocity Micro Cruz tablet (0.95) are on the very bottom of the list.

To get more specific insights into the dynamics of the tablet customer perceptions, we sampled a market segment by analyzing the most experienced (i.e., most reviewed) models representing different operating systems.

1. Amazon Kindle Fire – 3,572 customers
2. Apple iPad 2 – 999 customers
3. RIM Blackberry Playbook – 281 customers
4. HP TouchPad – 970 customers
5. Motorola Xoom – 588 customers
6. Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 inch – 615 customers

More details and customer feedback verbatim are available via access to the dynamic dashboard for this segment on request. Watch this video for navigation tips.

We finally got enough customer feedback to see the evidence that iPhone 4S substantially improved customer experience compared to iPhone 4 models. Apple resolved antenna issues completely and as the result significantly improved reception/signal clarity. Customers love new keyboard experience and their usability satisfaction ratings are exceedingly high. The results are based on Opinion Mining of 4,489 Apple iPhone customers published online.

The image above highlights the attributes of customer’s experience most important to them as they have articulated in their feedback. No keywords were used during the analysis to identify these attributes, and no questions were asked to influence the answers, as surveys are not our business or part of our opinion mining methodology. Click on the image to enlarge it.

This is a new analysis of customer feedback, which is available online, about their smart phones. At this time we are tracking and analyzing comments from 37,110 customers on 136 mobile smart phones. I decided to filter out the phones which were not updated with new customer comments during the last 30 days to insure that these phones are still available on the market. The resulting Product Reputation report is available at Market Intelligence.

I selected the most reviewed phones for each operating system to take a close look at what attributes are important to the smart phone customers. As customers keep posting their reviews and forum comments about their experience with the phones they chose,  Reliability remains the most important specific attribute that dominate the conversation as 15.22% of all opinions mined is focused on it.

Let’s face it, anybody who buys a smart phone and pays for the service expects to be able to use their phone every time they want to. Apple clearly outshines competition by exceeding customers’ expectations of Reliability by 10%. HTC-HD7 (Win7 OS “representative”) meets their customers’ expectations: however Android (HTC Thunderbolt), Symbian (NokiaN8) and RIM’s Blackberry Curve 9330 are a disappointment to customers who selected to purchase these phones.

Overall customers are satisfied with their decisions to various degrees, but Apple iPhone users are reporting that the phone exceeded their expectations by 42%. Not surprisingly they also are the most satisfied with the choice and quality of the Applications available to them, their Usability and Web Browsing Experience. Since I personally have never purchased an Apple product, nobody can accuse me in the Apple bias: however this phone has earned a remarkable reputation by managing not to disappoint its user in a single attribute of customer experience.

Nokia N8 leads customer satisfaction in Battery Life, exceeding expectations by 14%, Call Quality, Music Player experience, Sound and Video Quality. However, it also disappoints their customers where it really counts – poor Customer Support, inadequate Keyboard, Operating System experience and Web Browsing.

Below is the list of top 19 Customer Experience Attributes by their importance to the customers as they opined in their comments and reviews. Our methodology does not utilize surveys, focus groups, panels or other forms of leading questions/bias forming market research tools. I have filtered out any Attribute with importance below 0.35% that may be very valuable for Product Marketing analysis, but not very meaningful for general consumption. The complete list is available on request:

1. General Satisfaction (~CSI) – 16.96%
2. Reliability – 15.22%
3. Usability – 8.97%
4. Battery Life – 5.42%
5. Screen/Display experience – 4.44%
6. Call Quality – 3.78%
7. Customer Support – 3.39%
8. Style/Design – 3.19%
9. Picture Quality – 1.94%
10. Feature Set – 1.92

The selection of phones for the comparative analysis would vary based on criteria important to a person who conducts the research – I wanted to compare a single representative phone per operating system and you may want to find the best Android phone for example. The Attributes and their importance may vary based on such choice as customers “conversations” could yield substantially different results.

Last week, the announcement of Amazon Fire line of products created a sizable splash in social media, Consumer Electronics, business and IT publications. While this new device does not have specs of a tablet, most observers immediately started to pin it against iPad. Is it a fair comparison? The answer to this question depends on your definition of what a product is. If you define a product by its functions and features, the answer may be – No. However, if your understanding of a product agrees with Clay Christensen’s definition as the “jobs-to-be-done,” the iPad and Fire will most definitely compete for the same share of consumer wallet, as most customers of these devices use them for web browsing/entertainment most of the time.

Since the Amazon Fire is not yet shipping to the customers, I would like to offer a comparison between Amazon Kindle and Apple iPad 2 from the perspective of their customers. Online marketing research produced this analysis of 7,706 customers feedback published in social media.

The image above highlights the attributes of customer’s experience most important to them as they have articulated in their feedback. No keywords were used during the analysis to identify these attributes, and no questions were asked to influence the answers, as surveys are not our business or part of our opinion mining methodology.

You can click on this link to access the dynamic dashboard and verbatim (by clicking on a specific bar).

Given such a high perception of value users of relatively primitive but extremely functional Kindle give to their experience, the Fire is poised to make a sizable bite out of current iPad tablet growth prospects.

This online market research, administered by Amplified Analytics, is valid as of August 5, 2011 and is the result of the review of different tablet brands’ segment of the market. It is based on the analysis of customer feedback from 8,241 tablet users who expressed their sentiments on the product.

The chart above depicts the Word of Mouth (WOM) Share for ten of the top tablet brands in terms of customer satisfaction (CSI).

The chart above illustrates shows customer satisfaction with Operating System of their respective Tablet.

The scores were algorithmically produced by the use of Opinion Mining software that conducts an analysis of customer feedback that is published online by the customers themselves; no customer was personally contacted to provide their opinions.  The relative percentages were not based on customer’s answers to biased survey questions. It is not Amplified Analytics’ business to conduct surveys.

It is also important to note that the Apple iPad2 was excluded from the list of tablet brands analyzed because it significantly dominates the market, thus making the comparison of customer satisfaction meaningless. The Apple brand seems to have its own market that is incomparable to others.

The chart below shows a comparison of specific attributes (reliability, portability, display, etc) of leading tablets. These attributes came from the customers when they shared their experience using the brands. The green line athwart denotes the relative importance of each attribute to customers. Check the methodology used in this link: Opinion Mining. Attributes with less than 1% importance were not included in the graph.

From the graph, we can see that Reliability is the most important attribute, with 11.7% of total opinions.

Yet, customers of Samsung Galaxy continue to get disappointed for the second month of measuring it since it was first introduced. Its Customer Support, with an importance rating of 1.76%, exceeds customer expectations by 8% while the Display attribute, with a 7.42% score, is on top of the competition.

You can access this dynamic Customer Intelligence dashboard by clicking on this link and CustomerSay! Verbatim by clicking on a specific bar of this chart. “Attributes” and “Products” selection windows allow for focus on your area of interest.

It appears Digital Media receivers keep on selling well and more consumers are considering to cut off the cable for their entertainment needs. We have published results of Voice of Customer analysis six months ago and it is still one of the most visited posts on this blog. The comments are also keep coming, and the one sent yesterday caused me to write this update.

This time we used Opinion Miner® software to discover:

• WHAT attributes of their customer experience are important – based on the stories and reviews these customers published on-line;
• HOW important are these attributes to them – based on the percentage of opinions expressed about an attribute compared to total opinions expressed;
• MEASUREMENTS of a difference between customers expectations and their experience for each attribute. It is expressed in a two points scale from “0″ (unacceptable) to “2″ (delighted) with “1″ that can be interpreted as 100% satisfied (expectation=experience).

We selected the following DMR’s, listed alphabetically, for this customer feedback analysis:

1. Apple TV 2010 (593 customer reviews)
2. D-Link Boxee Box (425 customer reviews)
3. Logitech Revue (367 customer reviews)
4. Roku XDS Streaming Streaming Player (1,186 customer reviews)

The number of opinions expressed by these products’ customer reviews does not match, and usually exceeds by a wide margin, the total number of customer reviews, as our software often extracts multiple opinions from a single customer story.

Keep in mind that no questions were asked about their experiences and no customer was ever contacted by us to solicit their opinions.  Surveys is not our business!

Our customer feedback analysis shows that Reliability is the most important attribute of customer experience for Digital Media Receivers, as 16.79% of all opinions expressed were focused on it. Unfortunately Boxee Box disappointed substantial number of their customers by shipping defective units, connectivity problems and firmware related stability issues. The details are available on request free of charge*. Reliability problems often put pressure on Support organizations and the D-Link customer support experience have also earned negative ratings from their customers. Apple TV and Roku reviews have generated below expectations score as well for the Support with comments like these

The CustomerSpeak! sample is from Roku reviews

Usability is the second most important attribute of customer experience with 10.96% of all opinions expressed. All analyzed products delighted their customers with their usability experience.

Please click on the chart above to enlarge the image.

All of the analyzed DMR’s are very easy to set-up according to their customers, but Roku’s customers feel that they got the best value as the XDS Streaming player Price attribute has the highest score of 1.24.

* Please specify DMR product when request for detail information

Last week we focused at customers’ perception of Operating System for tablets they purchased. These metrics are extracted from 1,352 customer generated content pieces published on-line  on or before June 15th, 2011 using Opinion Miner software.

The difference between customer expectations and their experience is measured from 0 to 2, where 1 represent a point of experience matches expectations and can be interpreted as 1=100% satisfaction.

The importance indicates a percentage of opinions about this Attribute weighted against the sum of all opinions expressed about the analized set of products. Considering the ratio of customer reviews published on-line against the number of units sold, any Attribute that carries importance over 1% may be experienced by tens of thousands of customers.

— CustomerSpeak! —

Android customers are also quite happy with their purchasing decisions depending on the version supplied with their tablet, while iOS do not have anything specific to say on the subject.

The tablets market segment is fun to watch. While there is no doubt that Apple “owns” the segment it is interesting to note that it has the lowest satisfaction score compared to the competition.

Given the enthusiasm of Apple fans and popularity of the original iPad, I wonder if the bar was set too high for many iPad 2 purchasers. Digging deeper into the details of Customer Experiences we can see that a lot of negative comments are focused on quality of the camera embedded into the tablet.

Indeed the “focused” listening provides specific metrics that show difference between customer expectations and their actual experience with this attribute of Customer Experience.

The analysis shows that Blackberry Playbook is a clear leader when it comes to Customer Experience with picture quality. Considering widely held belief (which I do not share) that Apple does not do market research it would be interesting to see if they address the camera/picture quality issue in the next edition of this popular product.

We used Opinion Miner® software to analyze 1,103 customer generated reviews, published online before May, 29 2011, of the tablets listed above to generate these findings. The scores are calculated to the two point scale from 0 (unacceptable) to 2 (delighted) with 1=100% satisfied (i.e. experience matches expectations).

The Playbook introduction caused a lot of controversy well before it was actually released with speculations about its battery life problems wildly spread all over internet. The decision to go with its proprietary operating system was also met with a lot of criticism in social media. However since the Playbook started shipping and customers had a chance to form their own opinion, the results of their opinions analysis did not produce a crystal clear picture yet.  One thing seems to emerge though – it is a lot better product than most people have expected.  This writing is based on the analysis of 886 customer reviews of their experience with these tablets.

Below is a screenshot of the dashboard with a subset of attributes that are most important to customers (statistically determined). The bars represent measurements of the difference between customer expectations and there experience with each attribute.

It appears that Battery life issue was either blown out of proportions by pre-release speculations, or miraculously corrected by RIM engineers before the product started shipping, as the Playbook customers report that it exceeded their expectations by 21%.

QNX operating system appears to be a big hit with the customers as it exceeded their expectations by 35% and scored at much higher customer perception levels than iOS and Android.

What is surprising that overall general satisfaction score from the Playbook customers is quite low in spite the fact the most of the important attribute’s scores are positive.  When I clicked on the general satisfaction bar of the Playbook, the negative opinion snippets (customer insight) was focused around the lack of content and applications for the device.