San Jose, CA Ð NeXT users love their computer's quality and value but question the manufacturer's commitment to its customers, according to a recent survey conducted by Dataquest, a leading market research firm based here.
In the survey, the first of its kind in the workstation marketplace, Dataquest interviewed 1000 users of workstations across the United States to find out what they liked and disliked about the machines they are using. Overall, NeXT ranked second in the industry in customer satisfaction, behind Silicon Graphics, but ahead of Sun Microsystems, IBM, Hewlett-Packard, and other manufacturers.
The survey ranked customer satisfaction in eight key areas: hardware and operating system quality, product delivery, footprint, connectivity, commitment to the customer, performance and upgrade potential, value for the price of the workstation, and documentation. NeXT performed better than the industry average in every category except "commitment to customers," the category ranked second in importance by users, according to Steve Goeptge, Dataquest's vice president of marketing communications. In that category, Dataquest found NeXT to be significantly below the industry average.
"We are taking the feedback [about customer commitment] very seriously," said Elton Sotello, NeXT's manager of customer support. "We are taking a look at some of our support policies, in particular the way we handle problems and complaints that come in through the 800 number."
About 75 NeXT customers were interviewed for the survey. Dataquest plans to repeat the survey every quarter.