Consumer Satisfaction Up, But They Aren't Shopping

Ann Arbor, MI, Feb. 17, 2009--There's one bright spot for consumers in this poor economy: Those who are shopping enjoy the experience.

However, too many consumers don't have the financial ability to get in on the action.

The 2008 fourth-quarter results from the American Customer Satisfaction Index saw consumers' satisfaction with the goods and services they buy inch up. The index climbed to 75.5 on the ACSI's 100-point scale, up 0.9 percentage point from the third quarter.

According to Claes Fornell, the University of Michigan professor who heads up ACSI, consumer spending typically stays in step with customer satisfaction.

The better the shopping experience, the more likely the shopper is spend money at certain retailers and overall.

That, however, doesn't appear to be the case this year.

"In the past, we could look at customer satisfaction and make accurate predictions about consumer spending," Fornell said, citing similar results at the tail end of the 2001 recession and the ACSI measure indicating an uptick in consumer spending.

"But this time around, because we haven't seen anything like this (economy), it's hard to make sense of it for patterns in the future.

"Consumers are behaving very bizarrely," Fornell added. "Normally you would save for a rainy day. Now when it's raining, we're saving money. It doesn't make sense."

What's more, the satisfaction results themselves could be suspect.

Are shoppers getting more attention from sales clerks because the ratio of staff-to-customer is better now, even as stores cut back hired help? That's just one unanswered question.

"The paradox is that there's rarely been a better time to be a consumer," Fornell said. "I'd be surprised if consumer satisfaction had fallen. The question now is how sustainable is this."

"Now the problem is simple," he said. "Just give consumers money and get credit growing again."