The annual report on the information industry sector from the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) shows that customers are happier with telecommunication services and technologies than they were a year ago.

The information sector benchmark—the combined aggregate score for wireless telephone service, Internet service providers (ISPs), subscription television service, cellular telephones, fixed-line telephone service, and computer software—climbed 0.6 percent to 72.3 on a 0–100 scale. The improvement, along with gains for energy utilities and healthcare (reported by ACSI in April), pushes the national customer satisfaction benchmark up 0.4 percent to 76.6.

“Customer satisfaction with the information sector is improving, but none of these industries score higher than the national average,” says Claes Fornell, ACSI’s founder and chairman. “Limited competition combined with high consumer expectations for information services are a formula for relatively weak buyer satisfaction, despite the gains.”

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