What can ACSI tell us?
• Customer satisfaction is a leading indicator of company financial performance. Stocks of companies with high ACSI scores tend to do better than those of companies with low scores. • Changes in customer satisfaction affect the general willingness of households to buy. As such, price-adjusted ACSI is a leading indicator of consumer spending growth and has accounted for more of the variation in future spending growth than any other single factor. • Because consumer spending accounts for 70% of GDP, changes in customer satisfaction as measured by ACSI also correlate with changes in GDP growth. As GDP is a measure of the quantity of economic output and ACSI a measure of its quality, economic growth is dependent on producing not only more but also better products and services. • Manufactured goods tend to score higher on ACSI than services. For example, canned food and household appliances score much better than banks, airlines, and cable TV. Typically, the more service required, the lower
