Apple Takes Top Spots in U.S. Customer Satisfaction, According to J.D. Powers

Apple has ranked as the top smartphone brand in the country in terms of customer satisfaction among carrier subscribers, according to J.D. Powers.

Cupertino’s customer satisfaction was scored the highest among “full-service” carriers T-Mobile and Verizon. Apple also took the top spot among non-contract carriers, such as Boost, Cricket, Virgin and MetroPCS. Overall, Apple is the most popular smartphone brand in the U.S. according to customer satisfaction, the two J.D. Powers studies reported — although that’s not absolute across the board.

In comparison, Samsung scored the highest in customer satisfaction among AT&T and Sprint customers. Though Samsung’s strong devices and brand recognition have put them neck-in-neck with Apple, it might be worth noting that the full-service polling largely took place before the Galaxy Note 7 recall. On the other hand, in the non-contract study, Samsung took third place, behind Apple and Microsoft, AppleInsider reported.

Full-service carriers will typically have higher satisfaction ratings due to subscribers being more likely to have newer and more expensive phones, J.D. Powers noted.

Both studies measured customer satisfaction according to several factors. The full-service satisfaction study measured (in order of importance): performance, ease of operation, battery, physical design, and features. The non-contract study measured satisfaction based on six factors (again, in order of importance): performance, physical design, ease of operation, features, battery and cost. Notably, 31 percent of full-service customers cited a phone’s features as their primary reason for buying a particular device, while 51 percent of non-contract subscribers picked a phone’s cost as their number one reason, iClarified reported.

There were also some other interesting findings of the J.D. Powers studies. For one, overall customer satisfaction is highest among AT&T customers, followed by Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile, in that order. Also, smartphone brand loyalty — the percentage of people who will purchase another phone made by their current manufacturer — is higher among full-service customers than non-contract customers. And the most wanted feature in a future phone? Around 50 percent of participants in both studies said wireless charging.

The full-service customer satisfaction study polled 12,248 people between March and August 2016. The non-contract study surveyed 2,762 people between September 2015 and August 2016. The results of both studies are available here.