Standing Out From The Crowd

Apple’s finest moment leads to big mistakes.

From a totally neutral perspective, Apple appears to believe that “the customer is always right,” adapting to their customers’ needs and attempting to accommodate every request. Apple’s desire to appease their most loyal customers, however, may come too late. The company has received multitudes of negative press since the iPhone launch, disappointing many loyal Mac addicts.

As I mentioned in a recent article, Apple is famous for developing and marketing stylish and useful products for a very specific (and passionate) public. Apple Evangelists are some of the most loyal customers around. They yearn for innovation and inventiveness, long for something special and different and, more than anything, love Apple for being the technology industry underdog that beats big corporations at their own game.

When Apple decided to enter the cell phone market, they had it made: a promising product, winning usability concepts to shake the wireless status quo, and millions of customers willing to buy - at ANY price.

Unfortunately, the wireless industry is dominated by what Apple customers call “the big bad corporations,” and to make the iPhone dream even possible, Steve Jobs cut a deal with one of the big players. Many Apple enthusiasts viewed this as selling out. That alone, however, was not enough to shake devoted Apple followers’ faith in their beloved company. The general consensus was that eventually the iPhone would be available on other networks and then all would be swell. Until then, thousands of early adopters were willing to cope with the “evil” AT&T as long as they could have the great gadget before everyone else. However, in their quest to enter a new market, Apple has taken their customers for a wild ride.

1. Apple announces iPhone’s price tag.
   • Yes, it seemed too high for a just a phone, and the tech community flooded the Internet with analysis of the iPhone’s shortcomings, but Apple’s early adopters were willing to pay to be the first to have the new gizmo. For true Apple fans, logic doesn’t play a role, and technical limitations are just, well, technicalities.
2. The actual launch day reveals all the shocking differences on each side of Apple’s arranged marriage with AT&T.
   • Everyone knew that Apple and AT&T were incompatible, but no one expected to see it play out so quickly. Even so, stores are flooded with customers, and iPhone sales exceed analysts’ expectations. Nevertheless, Apple advocates start to feel troubled and worry their beloved underdog is becoming too “corporate.”
3. Pressed by customers’ complaints and words from the competition, Apple capitulates and cuts iPhone prices by $200.
   • Let’s face it; the original price was a bit unreasonable. The 4G version was a lame duck, but if there is a company known for placing high bets and sticking with them until the end, it’s Apple. Customers and early adopters who bought the 4G version in the first day were left with an expensive discontinued product with virtually no commercial value a mere 2 months after its release. Angry discussions run amok over the Internet, and the once euphoric Apple customer experience is replaced with feelings of betrayal and deception. Lawsuits start to pour in.
4. Realizing that they were alienating their most loyal customer base, Apple attempts to correct their mistake by issuing a $100 credit to all early adopters. The Mea Culpa was published in a Letter to all customers.
   • The letter is honest and recognizes mistakes while promising to do better. However, for many it’s “too little too late.” Those who waited all night to get their iPhone on the first day at a premium price wanted status and recognition. The credit was half the price cut and seen by many as “hush money” or pocket change. But customers were not as offended by the price cut as by the value cut.
   • Apple could have easily corrected the situation (or avoided it altogether) by giving early adopters something of equal value, like a limited-edition accessory, exclusive membership to a community with benefits, exclusive ring tones or even just a stylish T-shirt saying “I was one of the first to have an iPhone” signed by Steve Jobs. Practically anything that gave a sense of being special or unique would have been more appealing than money.
5. Even before things started to cool down, the technical community hacked the iPhone, opening it up to third-party applications and use on any network. This means users now have the freedom to choose their provider and download new applications a good two years before Apple’s exclusive AT&T contract expires.
   • Hacking the iPhone takes skill. While a few power users unlocked their phones, the great majority were happy to keep the service they signed up for. Apple, however, not being accustomed to such treatment, didn’t take news of the hacks well. Concerned with potential future problems and the buzz around these issues, Apple posted a news release perceived by many as a preemptive attack against Apple Modders.
6. Apple runs to release a major update that “fixes” security issues, preventing iPhone owners from using other networks and locking out third- party applications. The problem is that the release also completely locks some devices, turning them into expensive, unusable gadgets, regardless of if they were hacked in the first place or not.
   • This was a real blow. The battered Apple Evangelist is appalled by the finger pointing and recklessness. Moreover, Apple’s fight hurt standard customers who can’t use their “factory fresh” iPhones anymore.
   • Perhaps Apple was pressured by their exclusive partner (AT&T) to produce an update before it was sufficiently tested. One of Apple’s brand promises is to have a well-built solution, free of bugs and upgrade problems (or don’t you remember all those cool TV Commercials?) Is Apple yielding to market pressure and releasing untested updates that cause their devices to crash? How very Microsoft of them.
7. Despite efforts to block the tech community from opening the iPhone, several new hacks were quickly available promising to open the new updated devices and even unlock the “bricked” ones.
   • What can I say? It’s a losing battle Apple may not be equipped to fight. Apple is accustomed to being loved and having a large fan base so it comes as a shock now that those same loyal users are speaking out against the company they helped make great.
8. Apple recently announced they will open the iPhone for third-party development.
   • Again, while I praise their responsiveness and willingness to comply with customers’ wishes, it just doesn’t feel very genuine or like the old Apple I knew and loved. It seems like they are being forced to react rather than doing so willingly and, believe me, customers can tell the difference.

All in all, Apple is still a strong company with loyal customers and supporters. They’ve undoubtedly made some mistakes while attempting to break into a new field. However, I still believe the iPhone is a great achievement and Apple brings some much needed fresh air to an otherwise stale and saturated market.

Apple’s recent follies teach us two very important Customer Experience lessons: First, when it comes to customer approval, you cannot rely solely on past deeds and reputation. In fact, a good reputation only raises the bar, forcing customers to hold you to a much higher standard. Second, you need to know and understand your customers’ needs and motives and consider them before you make decisions.

See Also: Even Mr. Popular Needs to Focus on Retention
Originally published at Vox Inc Customer Experience Articles

Today I’ve learned two important lessons:

1. Some habits are forced upon you and others are very hard to give up.

2. If you are doing something different from everyone else, you are either remarkable or just plain dumb.
 

If I’d knew that this morning, it would have completely changed my day…

Having lived my whole life in a tropical country, I find very difficult to remember to turn on the TV everyday to see the weather forecast before leaving to work.  In my mind, it should be enough to check it once a week.

(Matter of fact, I still have the habit of looking outside the window to “guess” the weather for the day).

Here in Chicago, the forecast was for a huge snowstorm, so unless one had a “life or death” kind of appointment, every wise person stayed at home and waited to see what Mother Nature would decide to throw our way. Well, I didn’t.  Nothing was said about a storm on the day before yesterday’s forecast, and my window guess told me that the snow outside didn’t appear to be that bad, so I ventured out and faced the road.

After driving for 15 minutes, I could already tell that it wasn’t going to be a fun trip. It was slick and slushy, not a single snowplow in sight, and the wind was starting to blow - HARD.  I could see many people turning back, but I am not one to give up easily, so I thought: “Everything will flow after I get to the highway…”

The highway came and the traffic slowed to almost a stop.  Still, not a single snowplower in sight.  The maximum velocity was about 15mph.  The road was extremely slippery and the only way to keep driving straight was to stay precisely on the tracks left by the car before you.

All that white around didn’t help alleviate my feeling of sleep deprivation and anxiety.  I had no idea how long it would take to get to work or if the storm would still go on for hours. Other cars started to stop in the curb or look for the exit to go back.  I kept thinking that everything would be all right if I just insisted for another ten miles and, in the end, I found myself turning back after 2.5 hours without even reaching half way to my office. 

Almost 5 hours after leaving my home, I was back.  I didn’t reach my destination and didn’t accomplish anything at all for first half of my day.  I went on a road trip to nowhere for no apparent reason.  On hindsight, I could have worked from the comfort of my home, attended to any meetings via conference call.  It might not be ideal, but would definitely be a better experience.

Like me in that story, customers sometimes are slow to react to a bad experience.  By pure habit, they hang on to a bad service for longer than anyone would consider possible.  But that’s an illusion!  If you ignore a customer experience problem until your customers start to leave, you may be waiting too long and now the damage may be irreversible, or just too expensive to fix.

Don’t make a habit of overlooking your customers’ complaints and suggestions.  If you ignore the signs around you, chances are that you’re going the wrong way.

By the way, tomorrow morning, before leaving, I plan to open my window, take a good look outside… and turn on the TV!

In my last post (”Welcome Back! Long Time, No See“), I commented on how face-to face interactions are being affected by the reliance on technology, subsequently missing real customer relationship development opportunities. After posting it, I realized that it wasn’t very fair. Technology and CRM tools can be useful for improving the Customer Experience in real world situations with creative implementation. So I decided to devote a few brain cells towards imagining some scenarios that could be implemented with today’s tools and technology.  Here is what I came up.

Grocery Stores:

After a busy day at the office, Beth (our imaginary customer) is driving home when she decides to stop by the store for some groceries.

On entering the store, she goes directly to the first available Customer Service Kiosk and, having forgotten her “Preferred Client” card, uses her index finger to log in. The system shows Beth her current shopping list with her son’s wish list, added earlier at home over the Internet. The system offers Beth some interesting new products fitted to her needs and a list of personalized coupons. She then prints out her shopping list and coupons, sorted by the store’s aisle layout so she won’t have to backtrack.

As she shops, a chip embedded in Beth’s cart stores her information and a wireless device indicates her location in the store.

Beth is speeding through her list until she notices that one item is out of stock. Of course, the list shows several recommended substitutions for the missing item, but Beth is not sure which to choose.  She decides to ask for help and presses a Customer Help button on her shopping cart. A nearby attendant, alerted by an automated text message on his two-way radio, approaches her.

“Good evening, Ms. Johnson, It is good to have you back!” says the attendant.
“Are you by any chance wondering about a substitution?”

“Oh yes, thank you!  I was looking for a dandruff shampoo for my husband, but his favorite brand is out of stock,” she tells him.

“Not a problem!” He swiftly picks up his hand computer and downloads her list and shopping history. “We have several other good brands, but I see here that your husband bought ACME shampoo the last time he was here. Was he happy with that purchase?”

“Yes, I think he said he still preferred the other one, but this brand was ok,” she says.

“If you like, I can get one for you. If not, I personally think this other brand here is very good. It’s a little more expensive, but it is more effective,” he adds.

“Oh, thanks! I will try that one,” Beth decides.

Satisfied with her choice, Beth walks towards the checkout and a small display on her cart indicates which cashier has the shortest line. At the checkout, the smiling cashier greets her with a “Hi Ms. Johnson, did you find everything you needed?” while quickly scanning her purchases. As the cashier thanks her, she adds, “Did you know that you can call us ahead of time and have your whole list ready for you by the time you arrive?”

She didn’t know that, but she is already considering doing that the next time she shops.

. . .

Forget all the Sci-Fi movies’ wildest predictions (although Minority Report has an interesting take on possible future customer experiences), the example here is imagined, but quite feasible with today’s technology. I wouldn’t be surprised if someone is already doing something like it already. 

Are you? 

A few days ago, I was reading a Tom Vander Well’s blog post titled “When Customers are Co-Workers” on QAQnA.

The article reminded me of someone I met a few years ago. She worked in the research department of a big global company and after complaining to me once too often that no one valued her work, I offered her advice on customer experience tactics. I was rewarded with the retort, “I don’t need any of this, because I don’t deal with customers!”

Then it hit me… She didn’t understand her work as providing a service to several other departments in her company.  No wonder her co-workers didn’t respect her work; she never considered them her customers and her work reflected that.

The blog author suggests that you should think of co-workers as customers, but I will go even farther and say that you should think of everyone as your customer.

Think about it!  You are always providing some type of service to someone. Your boss, your co-workers, your friends, your wife, your kids - absolutely everyone - in one way or the other, expect something from you.  It doesn’t matter if you are more than happy to give them what they want. They often count on it; they frequently demand it and most of all they will resent it if you fail to meet their expectations. But if the service you provide is good enough for them the majority of the time, they will remain with you and will pay you back in your desired currency: friendship, love, trust or respect.

Customer experience tools can be applied to everything in your life. The lesson is pretty simple: If you really care for your customers and make a sincere effort to understand their expectations, they will love you for that and will be loyal to you while you are loyal to them.

If you lived your whole life in the U.S., you may be oblivious to some curious everyday situations that I, as an outsider, can’t help but to find amusing.

For example, everyday I tear money apart.

No, I am not saying that I spend more than I should on a daily basis. I am stating that I LITERALLY tear money apart.  EVERYDAY!

Before you start cursing some made up foreign habit of throwing money away, let me explain: Given that all my normal written communication with friends and family is done through the Internet, every time I check my mailbox I rest assured to find only bills and direct marketing. Additionally, I frequently find marketing pieces disguised as money.

Some are checks for pre-approved loans that I didn’t ask for, some are checks to transfer debts to one of my credit cards, and finally some are checks for refund on the first month fee of a new bank service that I don’t want to sign-up for.

So, after the revision of delivered mail, I often pick the bills to be paid and immediately tear apart all the  “checks”, before I feel an urge to credit any of them.

That said, I can’t avoid the sense of wrongness when I think how I dutifully send my money to pay others and, at the same moment, I am throwing away any money that others send to me…

Maybe I am just crazy, but it helps me to think that if the global economy usually doesn’t make sense to me, why my personal one should? In any case, now I can understand a little bit why so many Americans are always in debt.

I still remember the first time I witnessed a user testing session.  It was a simple project, the type we were recognized for our expertise and could almost consider effortless.  On this one though we were very enthusiastic about some cutting edge functionalities that would, supposedly, make the site at least twice as easier to use.  We entered the session confident, waiting for the user’s reaction and certain compliment.

Well, as you can imagine, the user didn’t even notice the new feature and, after obtaining the same results from all other participants, we ended the test concluding that we had failed and went back to the drawing board.

Two months, much stress, several extra tests, and an oversized budget later, we finally discovered the cause of the problem: users couldn’t understand the terms we used to label the new functions, so they were just ignoring them…  The reason it took us so long to realize this, was that we were so used to those terms that nobody considered it would be incomprehensible for a “newbie”.

In the end, we were able to fix the problem, but our relationship to the client (not to mention our self-confidence) was never the same again.  The most interesting part though is that we didn’t test the project earlier because the client was resolute not to spend his time and budget with tests before the site’s launch.

The whole problem could have been prevented by a simple user testing on an earlier stage of the project. 

In a way, it was a good thing.  Now I avoid being too self-confident or believing that something will work just because everyone in my group thinks so. And, most of all, now I insist on testing everything (or at least ask some newbie friend to give me a fresh perspective).

See below some more information on the subject:

• Beware of design fatigue on long projects
• We are barring many from the web 

“Orkut, Linkedin, Friendster, Technorati, Del.icio.us, Digg…”  The list grows bigger and bigger each day.  And I am not even close to covering all the other websites and e-commerce venues that offer some kind of social networking feature to improve sales and/or increase references.

With all the buzz around them, do social networking services work? Definitely.  Do they work for everyone? Definitely NOT!

As with all things Internet, what works for some sites may not necessarily work for yours.  Without careful analysis and planning, you may end up investing time and money in features that won’t add value to your product or that none of your customers will use.  Or even worse, you may find yourself basing major decisions on input from a very small percentage of customers that does not accurately represent the needs of a bigger target audience.

In his last column, ‘Participation Inequality: Encouraging More Users to Contribute’, Jakob Nielsen asserts that “In most online systems, 90% of users are lurkers who never contribute, 9% of users contribute a little, and 1% of users account for almost all the action”.

See the column’s full text here.

With so much talk around Web Usability, it is easy to forget that Usability is a much broader concept and can be applied to almost everything.
 
By definition, Usability is the easy with which people can employ a tool or human made object to achieve a particular goal. 

Lately, this definition has expanded to include the effectiveness and efficiency with which users can achieve tasks in a particular environment.

In other words, you are surrounded by usability examples.  Some as complex as the computer in front of you, some as simple as your coffee mug.  Everything around you can probably be measured for its usability. Most can still be improved.

Signal vs. Noise posted today a very interesting entry about Casino Usability.  Even considering all observed flaws to the posted information (check Hunter’s comment), the discussion itself already makes the point of how usability could and should be applied beyond the internet.

I always understood that it can be difficult to please a customer, but I never gave much thought about why. Seth Godin has some curious insights though on that matter in two of his recent blog entries: What People Want and The Thing About the Wind.

My two cents to companies: Listen very carefully to your customers and understand them as if you were in their shoes. Without that, you may be catering to your customers’ every whim without ever giving them what they really want.

A Man in Malaysia Gets $218 Trillion Bill. How does something like this get past the billing department?!?

See the story here.

*This post was originally published at the Customerspective Blog