97 percent of Apple Watch owners are either Somewhat Satisfied or Very Satisfied with the device, according to a survey from Wristly. The survey of some 800 Apple Watch owners places customer satisfaction above both the original iPhone and the original iPad—but even more interestingly, the survey suggests that non-techies love the device more than techies.
Wristly bills itself as "the largest independent Apple Watch research platform."
Source: Wristly
The survey found that some 66 percent of respondents were Very Satisfied with their Apple Watch, while 31 percent were Somewhat Satisfied. That's 97 percent customer satisfaction—while that's below the 99 percent satisfaction rate enjoyed by iPhone 6, it's ahead of the original iPhone (92 percent) and the first iPad (92 percent).
Source: Wristly
To Tech or Not to Tech
All of those numbers are satisfaction rates most companies would kill for, it's very interesting in the face of Slice Intelligent's report showing falling Apple Watch sales. As Philip Elmer-Dewitt noted at Fortune, it also contrasts with the mixed reviews Apple Watch has gotten from tech journalists.
That may not be a coincidence, because Wristly also noted that people who describe themselves as being "non tech users" loved their Apple Watches more than "app builders" or "tech insiders." Non techies gave the device a 99 percent satisfaction rating, and it was even more heavily skewed towards Very Satisfied, with a 73/26 percent split.
Wristly said that non-tech users comprise some 53 percent of their current respondent pool.
Source: Wristly
"If looking at the 'Satisfied' [and] 'Very Satisfied' numbers for the 'Non Tech Users' cohort," Wristly said in in its report, "the result is only bit higher than the other two cohorts. But when we look specifically at the 'Very Satisfied' category, the differences are staggering - 73% of 'Non Tech Users' are delighted vs 63% for 'Tech Insiders,' and only 43% for the 'App Builders.'"
"We can see clearly that the mainstream consumers in our panel (and perhaps across the world?) are delighted with their Apple Watches," Wristly added.
Participants
What this means in the grand scheme of things remains to be seen. Wristly's survey is conducted with opt-in participants. On the one hand, this makes the group self-selecting as folks who jumped on the Apple Watch bandwagon early on. On the other hand, this survey was about owner satisfaction, and only early Apple Watch owners could participate in such a survey.
Furthermore, of 1,100 "subscribers" in Wristly's panel, 800 responded and participated in this survey, which seems high. It usually takes opinions at the extreme to motivate people into participating in such things, and in this case, the extremes are almost entirely in the positive camp.
One More Thing
There was one more interesting aspect of this survey. When asked about Apple Watch as a whole, we see 97 percent customer satisfaction. But when Wristly broke down some individual aspects of Apple Watch, we get a very different picture, as shown in the image below:
Source: Wristly
Note that the highest rating is for "Build Quality," at 95 percent, the same as "Aesthetics/Design." But "Ease of Use" dips to 91 percent, with only 48 percent "Very Satisfied."
"Features and Functionality" also clocked in at 91 percent, but only 41 percent were "Very Satisfied," adding credence to my thesis that Apple Watch is missing killer functionality that we didn't know we needed.
Moving right along, 61 percent of respondents were satisfied with "Help/Support," while 76 percent were satisfied with "Performance (speed/battery)."
Not one of those individual points matches the overall rating of 97 percent, and a couple of categories are perilously low satisfaction numbers for a company like Apple.
This shows that the idea of Apple Watch pleases people more than any one aspect of the device. It's a fascinating aspect of this device, and I think it shows that Apple Watch has room to become more refined and better developed.
No matter how you slice it, however, these survey results—as self selecting as they are—demonstrate that Apple Watch owners are happy with the device. Apple just needs to get more folks to buy it so they can join those happy ranks.