American Customer Satisfaction Index

American Customer Satisfaction Index is the U.S. economic indicator of customer evaluations of the quality of products and services.

American Customer Satisfaction Index is known as the only national cross-industry measure of customer satisfaction in the United States that measures the satisfaction of U.S. household consumers with the quality of products and services offered by both foreign and domestic firms with significant share in U.S. markets. As a national indicator of the health of the U.S. economy and a tool for gauging the competitiveness of individual firms and predicting future profitability, it supports business, researchers, policymakers, and consumers of the U.S. It surveys roughly 70,000 customers each year to collect information with regards to the products and services that they use the most. Information collected through these surveys is used as inputs to an econometric model that scales customer satisfaction with more than 230 companies in 43 industries and 10 economic sectors, as well as over 100 services, programs, and websites of federal government agencies. American Customer Satisfaction Index’s time-tested, scientific model delivers key insights across the complete customer experience. Its results are related to some essential indicators of micro and macroeconomic performance. At the micro level, companies that display high levels of customer satisfaction tend to have higher earnings and stock returns relative to competitors. At the macro level, customer satisfaction has been shown to be predictive of both consumer spending and gross domestic product growth. Starting in May 2010, American Customer Satisfaction Index data became available to the public on a more regular basis, with results released multiple times per year. This change allows stakeholders to focus more in-depth on different sections of the economy over the entire calendar year. American Customer Satisfaction Index was founded in the United States in 1994 by researchers at the [University of Michigan](http://www.crunchbase.com/organization/the-university-of-michigan-2), along with the American Society for Quality in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and CFI Group in Ann Arbor, Michigan. It is headquartered in San Francisco, C.A.