Are you sitting down? You might want to, because the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) has released a report on what it charmingly calls “E-business,” and the findings are a tad surprising. Wired reports that–despite everyone’s idea of Google (GOOGL)+ as a deserted wasteland–the few users it does have are happier with the service than people still stuck on Facebook (META).
Just what Google always wanted: A small number of cultish devotees.
Facebook, for all its 900 million users, didn’t fare well on the survey. The social network faced a big drop in customer satisfaction and landed “amongst the five lowest-scoring companies of the 230 companies measured in ACSI’s reports.” So users might be locked in, but they just won’t stop whining.
Google+, on the other hand, has a “laughably small user base,” but those five people absolutely love it. The site:
debuted on the ACSI report with a much higher customer satisfaction score of 78 out of 100. That’s a 17-point difference from Facebook. The survey attributes Google+’s high marks to the social platform’s “superior commitment to privacy,” lack of traditional ads, and overall better mobile experience. Those surveyed by ACSI expressed distaste for Facebook’s Timeline feature, ads and privacy policies.
We’d propose a different theory: Google+ users are perfectly happy to stay far away from the hoi polloi of social media.
Consider these responses to a recent Twitter outage, in which “Plussers” roll their eyes theatrically at the tweeting masses who’ve arrived on their doorstep. One user described Twitter as “the place where you are penalized for using polysyllabic words in your conversation” and crowed that he’s on Google+ for the “intelligent, thought-out dialogue.” Maybe you should have just been pickier with who you followed?
And then there are the reactions to this very survey.
There’s this telling response:
Also this one:
A little more obliquely:
Answer: They’re all on Facebook, drunkenly uploading lolcats without fear of judgement.