Survey: Social media spurs device love

Wireless consumers that are really addicted to their devices are also really happy with those devices, according to the latest customer satisfaction studies conducted by J.D. Power and Associates.
The studies, one focused on smart phones and one on traditional mobile phones, found that smart phone owners that use their devices for social media services like Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook averaged nearly 22 points higher in customer satisfaction scores than the study average. The study also found that more than half of smart phone owners reported having used their device to access such sites.
For non-smart phone owners, usage of social media sites was measured at only 9%, but device satisfaction by those users was 58 points higher than the segment average.
The study also noted that customers that access social media services from their mobile device also tend to place more calls, send more texts, use more data, are more likely to purchase additional wireless services in the future and are more likely to provide positive recommendations for their handset brand and service provider.
“It’s clear that the gap in satisfaction between customers who use social media applications on their device and those who don’t is driven by several factors, but the critical ingredient is whether the user has a positive experience with the wireless device itself,” said Kirk Parsons, senior director of wireless services at J.D. Power and Associates. “Providing features that facilitate social networking activity and make it easy for users to communicate and share information between various social media sites may be an effective way for service providers to further engage customers and increase loyalty.”
Amongst device makers, Apple Inc. ranked highest in smart phone satisfaction with a score of 795. Users singled out the device’s ease of operation, operating system, features and physical design in their praise. Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. was second with a score of 763, followed by HTC Corp. with a score of 762.
For traditional handsets, Sanyo Corp. scored the highest satisfaction score with a 715, followed by LG Electronics Co. Ltd. at 711 and Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. at 703.
The survey also found that the average selling price for traditional handsets dropped from $81 at the beginning of 2009 to $73 in 2011, with a historic high of 46% of those surveyed saying they received their device for free in connection with subscribing to wireless service.
The mobile application craze continues unabated with two-thirds of smart phone owners saying they have downloaded games and social networking applications to their device; 54% have downloaded travel software or weather applications; and 53% have downloaded entertainment-oriented applications.