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Microsoft scored 70 out of 100 on the latest Q1 results of the American Customer Satisfaction Index released by Michigan’s Stephen M. Ross School of Business. That's down from 74 for the same period in 2006, the first year Microsoft was ranked.

"Very small differences count for a lot," said Claes Fornell, a University of Michigan professor and director of the ACSI.

The overall customer satisfaction rating with companies in the ACSI, which surveyed 80,000 people nationwide via the Web during the first three months of the year, was 73, according to Fornell. The approval rating for all software vendors (including Microsoft) assessed in the survey was 75.

Microsoft still ranked higher than many big, successful companies such as McDonald’s Corp., Cingular Wireless LLC and hotel operator Ramada. It also ranked higher than Comcast Corp. and most other cable and satellite TV providers, and virtually all of the airlines surveyed by the ACSI.

At the same time, Microsoft ranked below most delivery firms such as FedEx Corp., hotels, full- and fast-service restaurants, even most energy utilities such as Southern Co. and Sempra Energy.

Too big to be loved?

Fornell said that the launch of Windows Vista and Office 2007 during the period in which the survey was conducted may have played a part in dragging down Microsoft’s score. That's not actually because a majority of respondents had tried either software and found it lacking, he said. Rather, Microsoft’s need to hype the two products through marketing and advertising may have created a backlash among some jaded consumers, he said.

Fornell also said that customers have higher expectations for market-leading companies such as Microsoft.

"Microsoft is such a dominant company that economic theory predicts that their customer satisfaction would not be all that high, anyway," he said. "For them to come in at 70 is not all that bad."

In the past decade, McDonald's has consistently scored significantly lower than Microsoft’s "low" score this year, even while doubling its revenues over that period.

"If Microsoft really put resources into it, they probably could do better. And maybe for the long term, they should," he said.

Microsoft: Our survey said ...

Microsoft says it has been putting in precisely those resources for the past four years, since creating a unit within the company dedicated to boosting customer satisfaction.

The company says its own twice-yearly surveys show that strategy has borne fruit.

"We have plenty of room to improve, but overall satisfaction is at their highest levels ever," said Toby Richards, general manager for worldwide customer experience at Microsoft in an interview Monday.

Richards declined to release the results of its own surveys, which are performed by independent firms and quiz 55,000 people worldwide online and over the telephone, including 15,000 in the U.S.

But he said the surveys show satisfaction steadily rising in the past four years since Richards’ team, the Customer and Partner Experience (CPE) group, was created.

"We feel good about the progress we’ve made in the past four years," said Richards. "And in the long term, we’ve created a culture within Microsoft that is more customer and partner-centric."

For instance, Richards said that Microsoft’s decision to repeatedly delay the release of Windows Vista to tighten up its security and features was heavily influenced by survey results that showed customers asking for greater "product stability and reliability," Richards said.

Microsoft’s decisions to offer its own security software such as Windows Defender, simplify its licensing terms for enterprise software, and introduce a heavily re-engineered interface called the Ribbon for Office 2007 were also influenced by survey results, according to Christopher Frank, senior director for corporate market research at Microsoft.