AirPods Achieve Record-Breaking 98% Satisfaction Rating

When designing a new product, late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs and his team of visionaries never really bothered to consider how the public might perceive it — but rather, Jobs had a penchant for deigning and developing products that only they, themselves, would consider utilizing in their everyday lives. In other words, while some of the most critique-able Apple products of all time may have faced initial skepticism, they also turned out to boast the most functionality, practicality, and desirability among users — even despite what the critics and naysayers thought.

Consider the Apple Watch, for example — a product that wasn’t the most warmly received by critics and early reviewers at launch, but which still managed to balloon in popularity among Apple faithfuls over time, ultimately climbing to the top of the charts in J.D. Power’s Smartwatch Device Satisfaction Report last year. Another example would be Apple’s luxury wireless earphones, AirPods, which were released last fall to the backdrop of mass-hysteria over Cupertino’s decision to axe the 3.5mm headphone jack on its iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus handsets.

Over the last few months of their existence, AirPods have received their fair share of criticism and acclaim, however, a new study released this week reveals that AirPods have become quite a sought after product in Apple’s vast portfolio.

Conducted by leading market research firm, Creative Strategies, in partnership with Experian, data collected via the study revealed that a record-smashing 98% of AirPods owners are satisfied with their purchase — with 82% of the 942 respondents indicating they were “very satisfied” with their AirPods, and another 16% indicating they were at least “satisfied.”

“The overall customer satisfaction level of 98% sets the record for the highest level of satisfaction for a new product from Apple,” writes Creative Strategies’ principal analyst, Ben Bajarin, while adding that “When the iPhone came out in 2007, it held a 92 percent customer satisfaction level, iPad in 2010 had 92 percent, and Apple Watch in 2015 had 97 percent.”

In addition to their satisfaction ratings, users were asked whether or not they’d recommend AirPods to a friend. Creative Strategies’ proprietary metric for assessing this, known as the Net Promoter Scale (NPS), is based on a 0-10 point range — with 0 corresponding to “not likely at all,” and 10 corresponding with “extremely likely.” Surprisingly, AirPods scored an average of 75 on this index, which Bajarin says is indicative that most users perceive AirPods as a world-class product.

Delving further into the survey’s overall findings, it’s revealed that between 97 and 98% of respondents lauded AirPods’ most unique features, including the amount of time they require to charge, the charging case’s design, and their ease of pairing thanks in part to Apple’s custom W1 Bluetooth chip.

Interestingly, even despite their myriad of delays in reaching market, the majority of AirPods users (82%) strongly or somewhat believe that AirPods are their favorite Apple product to debut in recent memory, which is rather notable considering they are branded as an iPhone accessory.

How do you feel about your AirPods? Let us know in the comments!