Despite meteoric and nearly ubiquitous popularity (click through for a sneak peak at the script of the upcoming movie The Social Network, based on Mark Zuckerberg’s ascent), Facebook leaves users only marginally more satisfied than their interactions with tax collectors. Talk about a negative customer experience.

From The Wall Street Journal:

Facebook plans to announce it has reached a milestone 500 million users this week — but that doesn’t mean the masses are happy customers.

The American Customer Satisfaction Index, developed by the University of Michigan’s Business School, included Facebook in its regular survey of consumer satisfaction with companies.

The result: Facebook came out with one of the lowest ranks of any company measured by the Index – a 64 out of 100. That puts Facebook in the bottom 5% of all private sector companies, and in the same range as the IRS tax e-filing system, airlines and cable companies.

Among social websites, Wikipedia led the survey with a 77, followed by YouTube at 73. Historically, performance in the Index has tracked fairly closely to a company’s earnings and stock returns relative to competitors.

If Facebook keeps growing, why do users score it so poorly?

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