For years, the word “smartphone” brought to mind suited-up BlackBerry (News - Alert)-toting businessmen and women.

 

Today, new research is proving the opposite is true, as smartphones with consumer-oriented functionality are getting high marks among consumers.

 

CFI Group’s latest 24-page report, “Smartphones, Providers, and the Customers Who Love (and Loathe) Them” – released Wednesday -- reveals a new breed of users are being drawn to network-intensive phones by Verizon, T-Mobile, AT&T (News - Alert) and other carriers. 

 

The CFI Group’s smartphone satisfaction study -- based on surveys of more

than 1,000 smartphone users -- used the methodology of the American Customer Satisfaction Index to compare smartphone platforms. According to the study, iPhone (News - Alert) is the leader in customer satisfaction, scoring 83 on a 100-point scale, 8 percent higher than its nearest competitors, Google Android and Palm Pre (77).

 

Plus, smartphones that have traditionally been popular among business users, like Research In Motion’s BlackBerry and Palm’s Treo, trail significantly in customer satisfaction, according to CFI Group researchers.

 

Speaking of business versus personal users, CFI Group also found that majority of new smartphone owners are using them for mostly personal use, a departure from the early adopters that originally used smartphones primarily for business.

 

The study also reveals that little correlation exists between satisfaction with the smartphone and satisfaction with the provider. Although the iPhone is the leading device associated with smartphone satisfaction, it has done little to help AT&T’s customer satisfaction rating, according to CFI Group.

 

According to the report, there is little future for the ‘generic’ smartphone. The iPhone has “clearly raised the bar,” but given the great performance of the initial versions of the Pre and Android (News - Alert), the gap is narrowing.

 

“Consumers clearly want to do more with their smartphone, and if you give it to them they will buy it and use it,” said Doug Helmreich, program director with CFI Group. “The good news is that there’s an opportunity to move customers into smartphones. The bad news is that nobody really knows if the networks will be able to handle the stress that will come with data-intensive usage typical of the new wave of smartphone users.”