Judging by the amount of calls Media Week gets from worried sales directors in the days running up to the release of the results, the media owners - both digital pure-plays and the digital arms of "traditional" media owners - certainly take the survey seriously.
ITV will be pleased that it is at last posting an improvement in its digital service, although it still languishes in the mid-30% level for agencies saying that their overall experience of dealing with the supplier is a good one.
MSN had a good six months, dominating the rankings in the online display ad sector. It is also catching up with Google in search. Yahoo, on the other hand, is suffering from low morale and its service levels are reflecting that.
In social network-land, Facebook showed particular improvement, presumably reflecting that it now has a full-time UK sales team. But Bebo fell more than any media owner for overall satisfaction levels, perhaps distracted by takeover fever.
For cross-media opportunities, which are profiled in the survey for the first time, offline media behemoths Channel 4, Guardian Media Group, Telegraph and Times performed best, which is encouraging news for old-school media types.
It's important to remember that this is still a young industry. Staff turnover is high and there is a shortage of suitably skilled staff. Some processes are long-winded and administration is difficult - and there is still the odd fax machine whirring away in the corner processing orders.
It is unlikely that the IAB's desire for there to be one electronic trading system to cross the whole of the sector - such as J-et in radio - will come about. Omnicom has plumped for MediaTel's Delta system; WPP's GroupM is using Addazzle. And there are other players out there such as DDS and IMD.
If there are to be four or five systems, the relevant IAB technical committee can play its part by making sure the electronic interface that links media agency trading systems to media owners is easy to manage. If media owners have to man- age multiple gateways to multiple trading systems, they will definitely continue to find it difficult to improve their service.
- Steve Barrett is editor of Media Week, steve.barrett@haymarket.com, www.mediaweek.co.uk/stevebarrettblog.