The latest ‘customer satisfaction’ rankings for personal computers (PC) have been released by the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) – a project of the business school of the University of Michigan. The ACSI, which rates different industries in every calendar quarter, rates PC ‘customer satisfaction’ in the second calendar quarter of a year.

As per the statistics revealed by the survey - based on detailed interviews conducted with a randomly-selected sample of US consumers – Apple has bagged the top position in terms of customer satisfaction, which is gauged on a scale of 0 to 100.

While Apple topped the ACSI’s customer satisfaction chart with a rating of 84, Dell managed the second spot with a 75 rating. The other PC makers - Hewlett-Packard, Compaq, Acer, and “all others” – were tied at the third spot with a ranking of 74.

However, even though Apple retained its “top of the rung” position among the PC makers, Apple’s rating this time round has dropped 1.2 percent, from the last year rating of 85. While Dell’s rating remained unchanged; Compaq showed a 5.7 percent improvement in rating, Acer improved 2.8 percent, and HP improved 1.4 percent.

Commenting on Apple’s customer satisfaction lead, Professor Claes Fornell said: “Apple's success has been a result of innovation, integration of products, customer service and good marketing.”