• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, June 8, 2022

Customer satisfaction with some of the top brands in streaming -- including Netflix, HBO Max, Peacock and Apple TV+ -- is surprisingly lower than expected, according to a new study from research firm ACSI (American Customer Satisfaction Index).

The American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) Telecommunications Study 2021-2022 was conducted to gauge customer satisfaction with streaming video, subscription TV services, Internet and WiFi providers, VOD and even landline phone services.

The study is “based on interviews with 23,605 customers chosen at random and contacted via email between April 2021 and March 2022,” said Ann Arbor, Michigan-based ACSI.

“Customers are asked to evaluate their recent experiences with the largest companies in terms of market share, plus an aggregate category consisting of ‘all other’ -- and thus smaller -- companies in those industries.”

The streaming service that ranked highest in customer satisfaction was Microsoft Store with a satisfaction score of 79 (out of 100), followed by the “all others” category (78), Disney+ (also 78), Paramount+ (77) and YouTube TV (77). 

ACSI classifies the subscription services and services such as Microsoft Store, which sells movies and TV shows on a pay-per-view basis, in the same “video streaming” category.

The other majors were lower down on the list, including Hulu (ranked ninth with a 75 score), Amazon Prime (10th, with 74), Netflix (11th, with 74), HBO Max (14th, with 73) and Peacock (15th, with 72). Apple TV+ was second from the bottom in the list of 21 streaming services with a 69 score.

The streaming portion of the ACSI study covered service categories on an industry-wide basis such as Quality of Mobile App (83), Reliability of Mobile App, i.e., minimal down time, crashes and lags (82), and near the bottom of the streaming list, Availability of Current Season’s TV Shows (71) and Availability of New Movie Titles (70).

Elsewhere, the ACSI study found that satellite and broadband services ranked higher in customer satisfaction than cable providers. 

In ACSI’s ranking of customer satisfaction with subscription TV services, U-verse TV (a DirecTV service), ranked highest with a 73 score, followed by Verizon Fios (71), DirecTV (66) and Dish Network (65).

Those services were followed by cable operators such as Xfinity, Spectrum and Cox. Optimum (57) and Suddenlink (54) -- both Altice USA -- were second to last and last, respectively, in the list of 12.

In this category, HD Picture Quality garnered the highest customer satisfaction with a 77 score. The lowest score in the list of services provided in the subscription TV category was a 65 score for Call Center Satisfaction.

Rankings on the list of Internet providers in customer satisfaction were Verizon Fios first followed by (in order) T-Mobile and AT&T Internet.

The three also took up the first three spots on the customer satisfaction list for in-home WiFi service -- T-Mobile first, Verizon Fios second and AT&T Internet third.

In the VOD category, U-Verse and Verizon Fios ranked higher than Cox, Spectrum, DirecTV, Dish and Xfinity.  

A list of Satisfaction Benchmarks By Industry included in the study puts the customer satisfaction data for video streaming, VOD, subscription TV and Internet service providers in perspective.

Topping the list is the food manufacturing industry, which had a customer satisfaction score of 80, tied with full-service restaurants. Rounding out the top five, in order, are breweries, cell phones, and personal care and cleaning products.

On this list of 47 industry categories listed in descending order of Customer Satisfaction Benchmarks, video streaming services ranked 32nd (74 score).

The bottom three among all of those industries were, in order, VOD services (45th - 68), subscription TV services (46th - 66) and Internet service providers (47th - 64).