• by Aaron Baar , September 18, 2012

All those tablets that consumers are buying (and seem pretty happy with) are bolstering the entire personal computer industry.

According to the American Customer Satisfaction Index, the personal computer industry has a record-high score of 80 (on a one-point scale), up from the previous two years’ score of 78.

ACSI Director David VanAmburg says the improvement is part of a halo effect of the high satisfaction rates many consumers have with their tablets. (Unlike some other customer satisfaction studies, the ACSI index includes satisfaction rates among all types of computers, including desktops, laptops and tablets.)

"What we’re seeing is improvement across the board for the industry, driven largely by the fact that satisfaction with tablets is higher than with desktops and even laptops,” VanAmburg tells Marketing Daily. “Over the last three years, there’s been a lot of improvement, and it has been attributable to this push toward more powerful and useful ways of doing computing.”

Among specific brands, Apple continues to lead the group, with an index score of 86 -- which, although down 1% from last year, is still five to nine points higher than other brands. Although the shift to tablets from PCs has greatly benefitted Apple in terms of market share, other companies are benefitting from satisfaction rates among more loyal consumers.

“We see this in lots of industries. Among companies that are losing customers, the satisfaction of the remaining customers is higher,” VanAmburg says. “One can always assume that it’s the least satisfied customers that are defecting. So the remaining base is going to be satisfied more than they have been before.”

Among those companies that are seeing jumps include Dell, whose customer satisfaction is up 5% to 80; Hewlett-Packard, whose index score increased 1% to 79 and Acer, whose score of 79 is 3% higher than last year. A host of smaller PC makers (including Samsung and Amazon, which produce tablets, but not computers) improved their customer satisfaction scores to 80, up 4% over last year, while gaining market share at rates even faster than Apple’s, according to the report.