Americans Rate Goods, Services as Only OK, Study Says

Consumers say the quality of goods and services available in the United States is merely satisfactory, according to a new consumer satisfaction survey released Tuesday by the American Society for Quality Control.

The overall average rating in the survey is not high enough to protect U.S. industry from foreign competition, the Milwaukee-based organization said.

The 48-year-old society, developed by the National Quality Research Center at the University of Michigan, created a new consumer satisfaction index for the survey, which asked consumers to rate goods and services using a 100-point scale.

The society said it interprets the overall 74.5 rating--resulting from the way some 46,000 consumers scored 200 products and services--as consumers’ opinion that overall performance is merely acceptable.

Among the findings is that services, which represents the fastest-growing segment of the economy, is not performing as well as manufacturing, the survey’s designers said.

Specifically, chocolate candies and canned goods give us the greatest satisfaction, followed closely by milk and soft drinks, according to the results. We are least satisfied with the quality of service we receive from the U.S. Postal Service and police departments.

Claes Fornell, a University of Michigan professor who designed the index used in the survey, expressed hope that industry will accept the American Customer Satisfaction Index as an important economic indicator.

“The reality is that the health of the nation’s economy is now heavily dependent on customer satisfaction. It has everything to do with our quality of life.”

Or, as Jack West, society chairman, puts it: “Quality is what the customer says it is. It’s not what the quality professional says it is. It’s not what the engineer says it is. It’s what the customer says it is.”

Taken in that light, U.S. service industries may have reason to be nervous. Service industries scored just below the overall average, with a rating of 74.4. The lowest scoring sector was public services, according to the survey. Not surprisingly, the IRS came in at the bottom of all organizations and companies rated, with a paltry 55 satisfaction points.

Still, according to Fornell, American consumers report greater satisfaction across the board than consumers in Germany, Sweden and Taiwan--countries that employ almost-identical consumer satisfaction indexes.

Aggressive competition within industries seems to bring greater customer satisfaction than when industries are protected from competition, according to Fornell.

The quasi-public U.S. Postal Service received one of the lowest scores on the index, a 60, for its basic mail services. But overnight mail service, in which the Postal Service competes with private companies such as Federal Express, United Parcel Service and others, earned one of the highest scores, at 81.

Long-distance telephone companies also scored particularly well, coming in at 82.

The creators of the consumer satisfaction index hope their quality index will become as important an economic indicator as the consumer price index and other macroeconomic indicators.

Fornell explained: “If accounting were to incorporate customer satisfaction as an asset on the balance sheet, we would have a better understanding of the relationship between enterprise’s current condition and its future capacity to produce wealth.”

What They Think

Americans think the overall quality of goods and services produced by U.S. industries is only fair. A 100-point scale was used to rate consumers’ opinions of a variety of specific goods and services. A 75 indicates adequate quality. A sampling:

Canned goods: 87

Beer: 83

Athletic shoes: 79

Motion pictures: 77

Television broadcasts: 77

Hospitals: 74

Newspapers: 72

Fast-food restaurants: 69

Police (suburban): 65

Police (central city): 61

Postal Service: 60

Internal Revenue Service: 55

Source: American Society of Quality Control