I would like to start with a disclaimer. I have long admired Apple designed products even though I have never owned an Apple product. Every time I would get an interest in buying one and come to a store to try them, I would find them disappointing, as very enthusiastic Apple supporters seem to create expectations, that are very difficult to meet. I am also an admirer of Steven Jobs, perhaps because I have never met him in person . However this writing is not about my personal opinions, but a comparative analysis of market intelligence produced by our algorithms, based on customer generated content or Word of Mouth, and some additional external information sources that will be specified as I sight them.

Two latest Apple products are generating a lot of press and some of it is decidedly negative – iPad and iPhone 4. This writing will focus on the analysis of the iPad devices. When you try do “comparative” analysis one starts with a list of products to compare and iPad makes it very difficult as it seem to be positioned to compete with e-readers as well as tablets. The tablets category definition presents us with yet another challenge, so for the purpose of this analysis I decided to compare iPad with popular e- or digital book devices as well as some tablet devices that do not have a physical keyboards. Some popular retail website offer a very useful hint to see what percent of people who looked at a product actually purchased it, and if not what was the product they did, however in the case of iPad or Kindle such information was thoughtfully removed from every site I have checked. I also am very disappointed not to find any customer reviews on the Apple store website. It is very hard to believe that none of over 3 millions of  iPad customers did not write about their product experience on the manufacturer store site. The only possible explanation of that can be found in accusations that Apple actually censors the iPad customer discussions the same way as they accused of doing for iPhone4 here and here. It is very disturbing if it is true.

So here is the list of products I have decided to compare in terms of them meeting their customers expectations. You can make it larger if you click on the report.

Here is the scale legend for better understanding of the report.

iPad did not meet expectations of their customers, who wrote the reviews with 53% reported negative experiences (0.91) related to Reliability, and 65% of comments about Support were negative (0.94). To be fair, the customers are overwhelmingly impressed with screen readability (100% rated 1.81)  and usability of the device (96% rated 1.53).

I know the Apple just reported 78% increase in profits, but with 63% of their flagship product customers reporting that its value did not meet their expectations (0.98), I can’t help but wonder how long it would take for Apple to start loosing it’s “freshness”.

This video demonstrates how a registered user can extract a “Deep Dive” attribute analysis for a specific product.

This is an example of how our algorithms translate qualitative data (Word of Mouth, Customer Feedback, Voice of Customer) into quantitative, structured information. Our customers are using this tool to do pre-survey research, to identify the questions the subsequent survey validation.

This time we analyzed Blu-ray Disk Players. As of this date we monitor 56 products in this category and analyzed 6,482 reviews written by their customers. However some of these products have not accumulated enough reviews to produce statistically representative and accurate metrics, so we filtered them out of the competition. The second round disqualified any product that failed to meet Customer Expectations with its Functionality, Reliability or Support.

Sylvania NB530SLX Blu-ray disc player wins 2010 Piplzchoice Award

This week we analyzed Customer Reviews for Photo Printers. As of this date we monitor 180 products in this category and analyzed 14,627 reviews written by their customers. However some of these products have not accumulated enough reviews to produce statistically representative and accurate metrics, so we filtered them out of the competition. The second round disqualified any product that failed to meet Customer Expectations with its Functionality, Reliability or Support.

Piplzchoice award for Photo Printers goes to Canon IP90v

This week we analyzed Customer Reviews for Point & Shoot 10 MP Digital Cameras. As of this date we monitor 765 products in the Digital Cameras category and analyzed 66,481 reviews written by their customers. However some of these products have not accumulated enough reviews to produce statistically representative and accurate metrics, so we filtered them out of the competition. The second round disqualified any product that failed to meet Customer Expectations with its Functionality, Reliability or Support.

This week we analyzed Customer Reviews for 52-inch Televisions. As of this date we monitor 472 products in the Televisions category and analyze 36,475 reviews written by their customers. However some of these products have not accumulated enough reviews to produce statistically representative and accurate metrics, so we filtered them out of the competition. The second round disqualified any product that failed to meet Customer Expectations with its Functionality, Reliability or Support.

Samsung LN52A630 1080p 120 Hz LCD HDTV
2010 Piplzchoice Award winner
9% above average Customer Satisfaction in its Category
The winners are chosen by their customers

For full list of products in this category and Customer Reviews used for this research, select “Televisions & Video > Televisions” Category in Product Reputation Market Intelligence Report on this site.

Here is the list of runner ups.

2010 Piplzchoice Award for 52 Inch Televisions

Like serving borscht, an Eastern and Central European beetroot soup, it is best to consume market research, especially about customer relations, with a healthy dollop of creamy common sense.  I recently had dinner with several close friends who happen to be marketing mavens and my business associates. I was quite surprised when what I had intended to be a lighthearted joke brought the four of us into passionate disagreement.  I had been discussing an article written by a market research service and summarized my feelings in a simple sentiment – just because you lead a horse to water doesn’t mean you can make him drink TWICE from the same trough; he has to like what he is drinking for him to take a second sip.

Two of my friends immediately pounced; they joined together in a spontaneous lecture that reiterated market data from panels and focus groups about customer acquisition; lead generation through pipeline to close. They had research data that a behavioral psychologist would admire! Both my other friend and I told them that they missed the point – good marketing is about big-picture perceptions rather than a funnel-shaped sales process transitioning from an initial contact to counting sales receipts. Our point was that especially in today’s marketplace you must continually win a customer’s approval, you don’t acquire and hold them like so many shares of stock in an investment portfolio labeled “goodwill”.

Valued concepts of price, product, place, and promotion have undergone a paradigm shift. The emergence of the Internet has helped to democratize business. Mom and Pop businesses can compete on equal ground with multinational conglomerates now. In fact, the sales funnels now have even wider openings to suck in prospects. But “old-timers” often have difficulty recognizing paradigm shifts. What has democratized the Internet storefronts has also democratized Joe and Jane Customer!  The sales process once defined by the Four P’s has been digitized and now, in virtual space, finds itself also democratized. In a medium that travels at the speed of light, digital word-of mouth and concepts, like online product or service reputation, rule. Market research points to growing amounts of consumer-generated media as determining customer choice, not to mention customer loyalty. Studies suggest consumers seek out this information before they make a purchase and consider it advice without bias or ulterior motive.  You don’t “herd” people into funnels anymore; the savvy shopper more than likely “surfed the web” prior to “selecting” your product or service rather than you “acquired” them through place or promotion!

Besides all that, I reminded my friends that our thirsty horse doesn’t really show its “approval” until it returns the third time!  The first sip was the test based on curiosity, the second was a test reaffirming the initial experience; but the third is not only reaffirmation but proof that the water reliably satisfies a need. Finicky horse? Not really. It’s an adaptive survival trait called “conditioned taste aversion” (also known as bait shyness or the Garcia effect).  This apparently “hard-wired” behavior protects most mammals from too much of a novel “offering” (for example, poisoned bait) without testing its “safety (or reputation)” value over a short period of time.   In truth, even though people do mimic a herd and sometimes even stampede, they are even smarter than horses!  Your products, services, or business hasn’t ever really acquired your customers; your customers have chosen you!  Reputation has always and will forever rule!

This week I committed a double SNAFU, so I would like to apologize and to make appropriate corrections. Our selection process for the award needs some improvements and cannot be relied exclusively on semantic definitions of categories. Remote controls category happen to contain devices for TV, garage openers and other applications that should not be considered as competing products. I apologize and will update the selection process for the next week.

This is the correction

This week we analyzed Customer Reviews for Remote Controls. As of this date we monitor 90 products in this category and analyze 12,772 reviews written by their customers; however some of these products have not accumulated enough reviews to produce statistically representative and accurate metrics, so we filtered them out of the competition. The second round disqualified any product that failed to meet Customer Expectations with its Reliability or Support.

URC RFS200
2010 Piplzchoice Award winner
29% above average Customer Satisfaction in its Category
The winners are chosen by their customers

For full list of products in this category and Customer Reviews used for this research, select “Accessories & Supplies > Audio & Video Accessories > Remote Controls” Category in Product Reputation Market Intelligence Report.Below is the list of contenders
URC RFS200-2010 Piplzchoice Award winner/29% above average Customer Satisfaction in its Category

The registration is no longer required to research customer satisfaction scores for the products or categories of the products you may be interested in. Just proceed to select a Category of product, subscribe and are ready to for analysis.

BTW the short cut for selection of a product subset is available – Ctrl-F would open the window you can use to identify a string of characters or size, then use Highlight All function and select boxes left of the highlighted products to Filter.

This week the Market Intelligence Report for Portable Vehicle GPS category shows that Garmin nuvi 260 3.5-inch Portable GPS Navigator enjoys the highest aggregate satisfaction ratings from its customers for its Functionality, Reliability and Support.

Piplzchoice Award 2010 goes to Garmin nuvi 260

The runners up are respectively:
#2. Magellan RoadMate 1400 4.3-inch Portable GPS Navigator, and
#3. Harman Kardon GPS-810 4.3-inch Widescreen Bluetooth Portable GPS and Media Player.

You can extract reports like this for any category of products we track by registering with us at the home page and clicking on “Try Us Now” orange button.