ACSI American

Customer
Satisfaction
Index®

ABOUT ACSI
The American Customer
Internet Social Internet Search Engines Internet News
Satisfaction Index (ACSI®) is a
Media & Information & Opinion
national economic indicator of
72 -1.4% 79 +3.9% 75 0.0%
customer evaluations of the quality
of products and services available
to household consumers in the
United States.

The ACSI uses data from

interviews with roughly 250,000
customers annually as inputs
to an econometric model for
analyzing customer satisfaction
with more than 380 companies
in 46 industries and 10 economic
July 24, 2018
sectors, including various services
of federal and local government
agencies.

ACSI results are released

ACSI
throughout the year, with all
measures reported on a scale of
E-BUSINESS
0 to 100. ACSI data have proven REPORT 2018
to be strongly related to several
essential indicators of micro and
macroeconomic performance. For
example, firms with higher levels of
customer satisfaction tend to have
INDUSTRY RESULTS FOR:
higher earnings and stock returns
relative to competitors. Stock Internet Social Media
portfolios based on companies
that show strong performance in Internet Search Engines & Information
ACSI deliver excess returns in up
Internet News & Opinion
markets as well as down markets.
At the macro level, customer
satisfaction has been shown to
be predictive of both consumer
spending and GDP growth.

© 2018 ACSI LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

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ACSI E-Business Report 2018

Customer Satisfaction With Social Media Networks Lessens Amid

Privacy Concerns

INTERNET SOCIAL MEDIA

Customer satisfaction with social media drops 1.4% to a score of 72 on the American Customer
Satisfaction Index’s (ACSI®) 100-point scale. After peaking in 2015 at 74, user satisfaction with social
media has alternated between periods of decline and stagnation. Social media is the lowest-scoring
category of e-business and is among the bottom five of all industries covered by the ACSI—just below
health insurance and airlines.

User satisfaction lessens for the industry overall just as social media’s largest player, Facebook, sees a
downturn in its ACSI score in the wake of a high-profile data privacy scandal. Facebook slips 1% to 67—
perilously close to the bottom of the industry—and while it remains the largest social media site in the
world, user growth is slowing. Per its users, Facebook has by far the worst privacy protection in social
media, but that’s not the only problem. Facebook’s advertising is the most intrusive, navigation and video
speed is poor, and content is stale—all according to Facebook’s own users.

While most of the large social media websites lose ground or remain flat this year, three platforms buck
the trend with ACSI gains: Pinterest, YouTube, and LinkedIn. Pinterest posts the largest gain, up 3% to
lead social media with an ACSI score of 80. Pinterest enjoys a second consecutive year of improvement,
reaching an all-time high for satisfaction, and the site has doubled its active user base since 2015.

ACSI data suggest a good fit between Pinterest users and what the platform delivers. For most websites,
ads tend to have a dampening effect on satisfaction, but Pinterest users are more receptive. Although
much of Pinterest’s content is marketing-based, users rate its advertising on par with Wikipedia—which
has no ads. Pinterest, which retired the “like” button in 2017, has avoided many drawbacks of the
“networking” experience of social media websites. While users are dissatisfied with the lack of privacy
protection from most major websites, Pinterest earns top marks here.

Google+ captures second place while retreating 2% to 79. While Google+ has a dedicated—albeit
niche—user base, the latest coding and formatting updates have not been enough to keep its users the
happiest in the industry. Nevertheless, Google+ excels in mobile compatibility and matches Pinterest for
best-in-class privacy protection.

Wikipedia is unchanged at 77, far above the industry average, and in a class of its own in many aspects.
Users find site navigation to be unparalleled, and they are more likely to continue to use Wikipedia
than any other platform. Tools from major corporations also rely on Wikipedia, including Apple’s Siri,
Amazon’s Alexa, and Google. YouTube and Facebook plan to use links to Wikipedia to curb the spread

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of false information on their own sites. User expectations of Wikipedia are high relative to most other
platforms, especially considering that it is a free—and ad-free—nonprofit resource entirely dependent on
its volunteer contributors.

YouTube is one of the few gainers, up 1% to an ACSI score of 75. The Google-owned video-streaming
platform has made upgrades that have paid off, including its effort to make live streaming easier. According
to users, YouTube’s video speed and reliability outpaces other major social media websites.

Instagram drops 4% to 72 in user satisfaction and is leapfrogged by YouTube. The Facebook-owned

image-sharing app’s tweaking of its order-feed algorithm appears to be causing some frustration among
users. These and other upgrades, such as Instagram stories, have not been enough to offset rising user
dissatisfaction. According to users, site performance is worse, content doesn’t seem as fresh, video
speed is lower, and ads are more intrusive. To better compete with YouTube, Instagram launched IGTV,
which allows users to post longer video content, but the update is too recent to register on this year’s
ACSI results.

At the low end of the industry, Tumblr stagnates at 68, just a point ahead of Facebook. Microsoft-owned
LinkedIn gains 2% to 66, but the professional networking site stays put in last place, joined by a falling
Twitter.

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Twitter posts the largest decline this year, tumbling 6% to 66—reversing its gain from a year ago. Twitter
continues to struggle with fake accounts, bots, abusive content, and misinformation that has had far-
reaching effects. Since last October, Twitter’s rate of account suspension has more than doubled as it
ramps up its battle to combat suspicious content and remove bots. Nevertheless, user satisfaction has
deteriorated.

Overall, social media websites have improved mobile compatibility (+1% to 76), but most other aspects
of the user experience have slipped (-1%) compared with a year ago. Navigation is stable (76), but site
performance is down (76). Content isn’t as fresh (74) and videos are slower and less reliable (73).

Privacy protection deteriorates for a second year and now matches its all-time low of 71 from 2014.
Social media users are increasingly unhappy with the number of ads on sites as this measure retreats to
an all-time low of 68.

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INTERNET SEARCH ENGINES AND INFORMATION

User satisfaction with search engines and information sites is up 3.9% to an ACSI score of 79. The
gain at the industry level is due, in part, to weighting adjustments that reflect Google’s dominance in
the search engine marketplace. Unchanged at 82, Google remains the undisputed leader, far ahead of
the other major search and information websites, which lag anywhere from 6 to 14 points behind the
leader. Smaller search engines provide the closest competition to Google for user satisfaction, coming
in second place at 78 (-1%).

Also helping to boost industry satisfaction, MSN surges 6% to 76 as users see improvements in the
quality of features and services on its home page. Microsoft’s efforts to design MSN’s pages to maximize
video viewing without being distracting to users appear to be paying off. Users report improvements
across much of the MSN experience, including faster video playback, more acceptable amounts of
advertising, and increased mobile compatibility. Microsoft’s search engine Bing comes in with no change
at 73.

Yahoo! edges up 1% to 74, but user satisfaction remains a far cry from its high score of 80 in 2005.
Ask.com sinks 3% to 70, followed by Answers.com (+1% to 69), which recently announced that it will no
longer accept new questions, but existing content will be archived. AOL continues to lag the industry,
down 3% to 68.

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ACSI E-Business Report 2018

Search engines and information sites have improved nearly every aspect of the user experience, with
industry benchmarks boosted by Google’s excellence in areas such as navigation, site performance,
information variety, and mobile compatibility.

For the industry overall, navigation is easier (+5% to 83), site performance is better (+5% to 82), and there
is a wider variety of services and information (+4% to 82). Search engines have made strong progress
with the ease of use on all devices, up 7% to 81. Content is more up-to-date (+4% to 81) and videos
perform much better (+7% to 80). While the amount of ads rates as the worst part of the user experience
(70), it is more tolerable compared to a year ago (66).

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ACSI E-Business Report 2018

INTERNET NEWS AND OPINION

Reader satisfaction with news and opinion websites is firm at 75. FOXNews.com continues to satisfy its
audience above all others, inching up a further 1% to 78. ACSI data show that FOXNews.com readers
have their high expectations met more than readers of any other site, and they consider the website to
be the closest to an ideal news source. Readers are also more loyal and report a stronger tendency to
recommend FOXNews.com than readers of other major news sites.

NYTimes.com also improves, gaining 3% to an ACSI score of 75. Like the audience of FOXNews.com,
NYTimes readers have high expectations of their chosen news source. On the other hand, Times readers
are less loyal and more likely to get their news from other sources compared to FOXNews.com readers.
ABCNews.com and USATODAY.com each fall 4% to match MSNBC.com (-1%) at 71, far below the
industry average. HuffPost improves the most, but even a 4% gain leaves the outlet second-to-last with
a score of 70. Its readers find videos to be less reliable and ads to be more intrusive compared with other
news sites.

CNN.com is the weakest online news site, plunging 4% to the bottom of the category at 68. According
to CNN.com readers, navigation and site performance are poor, there isn’t enough fresh content, and
variety is lacking.

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ACSI E-Business Report 2018

According to online news readers, many aspects of internet news are worse than they were a year ago.
The exception is the amount of ads on sites, which is slightly more acceptable (+1% to 67), although this
remains by far the weakest element of the user experience.

For the industry overall, content is not as fresh (78) and navigation is worse (77). Site performance is
down (76) and news outlets aren’t keeping up with mobile compatibility (74). Videos are also slower and
less reliable (down 3% to 73).

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ABOUT THIS REPORT

The ACSI E-Business Report 2018 on internet social media, search engines and information, and news
and opinion is based on interviews with 5,169 customers, chosen at random and contacted via email
between July 18, 2017, and June 28, 2018. Customers are asked to evaluate their recent experiences
with the largest social media, search/information, and news websites in terms of visitor traffic, plus an
aggregate category consisting of “all other”—and thus smaller—websites in those categories.

The survey data are used as inputs to ACSI’s cause-and-effect econometric model, which estimates
customer satisfaction as the result of the survey-measured inputs of customer expectations, perceptions
of quality, and perceptions of value. The ACSI model, in turn, links customer satisfaction with the survey-
measured outcomes of customer complaints and customer loyalty. ACSI clients receive confidential
industry-competitive and best-in-class data on all modeled variables and customer experience
benchmarks.
ACSI and its logo are Registered Marks of the University of Michigan, licensed worldwide exclusively to
American Customer Satisfaction Index LLC with the right to sublicense.

No advertising or other promotional use can be made of the data and information in this report
without the express prior written consent of ACSI LLC.

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