Watch Satisfaction
Wristly Apple Watch Insider’s Report #37 — January 27, 2016
A big thank you to the 1,523 Wristly participants who registered their voice in this week’s research measuring Apple Watch satisfaction.
Expanding to the broader Wristware market!
We need your help to continue to grow this project. We are now expanding the research to owners of other devices on the wrist. We call these “wristware” and include Fitbit, Pebble, Jawbone, Misfit, Withings, Samsung etc.
If you or your friends or colleagues have one of these or an Apple Watch please join us at http://www.wristly.co/#!join/cn5e and help shape the future on the wrist!
Executive Summary
Last week marked our third quarterly wave of measuring Apple Watch satisfaction. Our original July 2016 rating measured Apple Watch satisfaction at 97%, even higher than the original iPad and iPhone. That rating was followed in October again with a high 96% satisfaction rating.
Meanwhile this past week, the overall satisfaction headline rating decreased to 92% of satisfied users and still only 3% dissatisfied. Why the decrease and for whom?
Since last summer we have regularly measured a lower satisfaction by Tech industry insiders and again this time the results are consistent with a large span of 5 points between the extreme cohorts:
The least satisfied owners are also the most technical audience with 89% satisfaction rate for those who state they work on mobile/watch apps vs 93% for people who do not work in tech. It is also worth noting the strong differences in the mix between Satisfied and Very Satisfied across cohorts.
We turn next to look at the results based on the primary purchase criteria stated, which has been a key to understanding Apple Watch in our data set. And here again we can confirm core findings:
Not only does the group of Tech Insiders with a total Satisfaction rating of only 87% pull the overall score down significantly; but we also discover another insight in that the cohort of panelists who received Apple Watch as a gift shows considerably lower satisfaction at 87%. Note however that the reduced satisfaction for those who received Apple Watch as a gift is a consistent behavior while measuring product satisfaction generally. In other words, we value higher the things we pay for ourselves.
All-together, when taking in to account the evolution of the composition of the Wristly panel including the large proportion of Tech Insiders (about 15% of the panelists), and the growing impact of people who received Apple Watch as a gift (more than 7% of the panel) we can partially explain the overall drop in satisfaction.
Next, we read through over a thousand write-in comments by our panelists explaining their rating choice, and for some also stating their wish of the one thing that Apple could do to improve their rating.
The themes were very consistent, here are a few representative quotes from it. Why are they satisfied?
There is no single primary reason. There are, instead several reasons: notifications, activity tracking, life tracking using Streaks and Clicky, having an intimate and available timer, quickly answering messages.
Notifications on the go without having to take your phone out of your pocket.
So many reasons…Fitness…Listen to music during workout…Apple Pay…Voice text…Answer phone…Instant weather update…Alarm…Good looking…Nice band…and more
I love my Apple Watch. It’s the future, now. Sure there are improvements that could be made, but this device is motivating me to be healthier and keeping me better informed!
Works perfectly and symbiotically with the iPhone
It makes a big step forward in terms of integrating technology into your life. A phone is still obtrusive, but the glances on the watch bring information to you in a way that is more natural and smooth.
On a side note, since inception the personal write-in notes and comments that the Wristly panelists have shared with us are an incredibly powerful component to shaping our understanding and we intend to surface more of the related analysis as part of Wristly Pro.
Meanwhile on the areas that our panel thinks needs the most work, we first asked the question of the ONE thing that our panelists were least satisfied with. The feedback was clear for the top 5 reasons starting from a lack of overall speed performance followed by the lack of value of the current crop of 3rd party apps.
Other reasons not identified below include — 5% complaining about battery life and another 4% not satisfied with the accuracy of the tracking sensors.
Regardless of the level of satisfaction, the vast majority of Apple Watch owners continue to wear it most of the time day after day. Even 11% stating that they even wear it at night to track their sleep or use the gentle taptic alarm. Only 1% of our respondents have stopped wearing their Apple Watches. Of course we expect the vast majority of our panelists who have stopped wearing Apple Watch to also stop answering our survey, therefore as some of you already know, last November we did a deeper ad-hoc survey on the main reasons for dissatisfaction — you can read the report here.
Finally where does Apple Watch fit in importance within other personal fashion or tech related objects? Unsurprisingly, 67% of our panel reported that iPhone was still more important and conversely 60% said Apple Watch was more important than their luxury watch. But more telling was the score Apple Watch fared vs other objects including iPad, Sunglasses or even jewelry.
The complete insights from last week research and further analysis were sent to the active Wristly Inner Circle participants and our Wristly Pro subscribers.
Wristly Pro features our in-depth monthly market report and several other benefit and is less than $90 per month with our intro offer valid until February 12, 2016. For more information and to subscribe please go to Wristly Pro Overview.
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