Amazon Beats Apple To Top Spot Of U.S. Consumer Satisfaction Poll

Amazon-box

Amazon has topped a poll for the best reputation among 14,000 U.S. consumers, narrowly beating Apple who was last year’s number one. The retail giant achieved an 82.62% positive reputation, according to research firm Harris Interactive, while Apple achieved 82.54%. Google nabbed fourth place with a vote of 81.32%.

Amazon, Apple, and Google all made the top five, with Walt Disney and Johnson & Johnson taking second and fifth place respectively. Technology also shone in Harris’s list of industries for overall reputation dominance, with a 79% positive reputation.

Screen Shot 2013-02-12 at 17.03.52Customers are asked to vote on how well they think companies perform in several areas, including products and services, financial performance, workplace environment, social responsibility, vision and leadership, and emotional appeal.

Somewhat surprisingly, Amazon topped the emotional appeal ranking five points ahead of any other company, “despite an entirely virtual relationship with the public.” It got “nearly 100%” positive ratings on all questions related to trust, according to Harris. More than 50% of respondents said that they had discussed Amazon with friends and family in the past year, and 100% those conversations were positive ones.

Amazon also beat other companies to the top of the products and services category.

Apple topped the rankings in vision and leadership, and financial performance. That’s no surprise given the company’s outstanding financial results of late. During the first quarter of 2013, Apple announced record revenues of $54.5 billion, with record profit of $13.08 billion.

The Cupertino company’s lead in these areas wasn’t quite enough to see it reach the top spot, however. It came in second behind Amazon in the products and services category, which is seen as an indication of the company’s increasing competition from Android-powered devices that are looking to do battle with the iPhone and iPad.

As noted by TechCrunch, the workplace environment category is a bit of a strange one to put to consumers, but Google won’t argue with it because it topped this category. The company is famous for the treatment of its employees, however; they receive free Nexus devices, great benefits, and when they die, 50% of their salary is paid to their loved ones for a whole decade after their death.