Across the world, smartphone users now demand more from their mobile devices and the primary benchmark which decides customer satisfaction has now become the battery performance of the devices. Two studies which were released today, the J.D. Power and Associates 2012 U.S. Wireless Traditional Mobile Phone Satisfaction Study and J.D. Power and Associates 2012 U.S. Wireless Smartphone Customer Satisfaction Study (SM) indicate that customer loyalty towards a particular brand as well as overall satisfaction for the customers depends largely on the battery performance of the mobile device.
However, not all consumers weigh battery performance equally with 4G consumers giving battery performance an average rating of 6.1 which is well below the average rating by 3G consumers who rated it around 6.7 on a 10 point scale. This is a reflection of the usage patterns by different users as 4G users are usually less battery conscious since 4G technology is quite power hungry. Also, 4G users usually tend to access the various functions of their phone a lot more compared to 3G users which implies that they run through the battery much faster compared to 3G users.
The Senior Director of Wireless Services at J.D. Power and Associates, Kirk Parsons, said that manufacturers as well as carriers have now identified the need to improve battery life and have started working upon it. He said that the study however shows that a sense of urgency is now called for as consumers facing short battery life on their handsets could defect from the manufacturer. Motorola was the first manufacturer to act in this regard, providing an optional beefed up 3300 mAh battery for the Razr Maxx which had a slated talk time of over 21 hours. The Samsung Galaxy note also comes with a beefed up 2000 mAh battery. Many popular smartphones like the Samsung Galaxy S II have extendable battery packs with increased capacity.
Parson said that users happy with the performance of their current device and the battery life that it delivers are more likely to purchase a smartphone of the same brand when compared to the users who are relatively less happy. The results show that a complete 10 on 10 rating was given by about 25 percent of the total 4G enabled smartphone users and all of them claim that they will surely buy a smartphone device from the same manufacturer. In comparison, only 13 percent of the users who gave the battery performance a rating in the range of 7 to 9 have said that they are likely to buy from the same manufacturer sometime in the future.
