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Social Marketing

Apple Please Listen to Us! Part III- Be Social!

Lastly Apple’s customer service is now having trouble keeping up with its growth. Don’t get me wrong, once you talk to someone you get great service, but getting to that point is difficult. Apple stores are always busy, and getting the time with a Genius can take days. Online their customer service is non-existent except for a few tutorials, a FAQ’s and a forum that no one from Apple seems to look at or moderate. Heck even finding there customer service phone number is next to impossible on the Apple Service website.

Why don’t they have live chat customer service? Why don’t they moderate the forums and see what the problems are? I called them the awhile ago because location services on my iPhone would not always work. I could find all sorts of post online about this very location services problem. Some on the Apple forum, others on Twitter or MacRumors Forums. To anyone who knew their way around the internet, it was obvious there was a problem.

But when I called Apple, they told me I was the first one ever to report the problem. She then talked to the CS supervisor and he still knew nothing of the problem. I told them to look at their forums. She then gave me an incident number for me to post on the forums so others could call in with the same complaint.

Shouldn’t Apple be doing this? Why are they relying on their customers to take care of other customers? Invest in your customers and they will reward you, even more than they do now. What if Apple was actively monitoring and posting in their forums? Think how useful it would be. Think of all the great ideas that would be shared, and the increase in brand loyalty they would have. (ok it is already pretty hi, but how long can it stay there?)

We are your customers Apple! We make you great! We control your future! If you do not listen to us, we will go away. We are a fickle bunch, and if you do not develop for us, take part in our conversation, or listen to us we will go way!

We’ll we may wait tell Steve leaves, but we will go away.

Apple Please Listen to Us! Part II- Steve Knows Best

Steve Jobs Knows Best!

From what I can gather about Apple from online research, they have done very little consumer research in recent years. This goes from simple focus groups, or even using online social monitoring programs to see what consumers are talking about. Instead it seems Steve thinks he knows what is best for us. He does not see a reason to use social monitoring, because he knows more about what consumers want than they do.

Take the lack of a picture messaging and video capabilities on the iPhone. I am sure that people within Apple brought these feature ideas to Steve before the 1st gen iPhone ever hit beta development and Steve simply said no, I know best. Why picture messaging? I use email for that. Why video? The quality would not be that good, and the files will take up too much space, they don’t need that. Then after the iPhone came out, everyone wanted these features, and they would cost little to add to the phone, but two years later and we are still waiting. Why? Because Steve knows what is best for us, and really does not care what we think.

Sure there are exceptions to that rule. Most of the time it happens when a 3rd party comes forward with an idea that is successful, and then Apple copies it or acquires it. Case in point, the iPhone App Store. Remember the outrage after word came out that Apple would not allow you to install software on the device? It was amazing, in weeks someone had found a way unlock the phone and apps were made.

This lack of control must have made Jobs extremely mad. Mad enough to actually listen to others and develop the App Store, but this is by far the exception to the rule.  The funny part is that when Apple does listen to their consumers (Ok, not really listen, more like respond to an outrage) they come out with some of their best products. I think Jobs says, fine they want something, well we are going to do it like no one has done before and blow their socks off.

Why don’t they simply listen to consumers at the beginning of the development process? Why don’t they simply ask for feedback, actually read their customer service forums? Why don’t they take these ideas, improve on them and make them world class?

In a way Apples consumers see more potential for the company than Jobs does. Why no DVR function in the Apple TV, why no Bluray support, why no docking station for the MB Pro? The list could go on and on. But to everyone on the outside, it just seems like Apple and Steve are being stubborn, and simply refuse to believe we know what we need.

Part III will look at how this is affecting thier customer service....

Apple, Please Listen to Us!

One of the main reasons Apple has been such a success in recent years is because of the amazing ability of Steve Jobs to develop products we all love. Jobs is a true visionary, and best of all he understands how to use technology to improve lives.

But how does he do it? He could be developing and marketing products that he likes, or he could be trying to figure out what we need/like and developing technology for us. I believe that Jobs develops products he personally would like to have and puts little if any emphasis on what consumers actually want.

So far it seems consumers like what Steve likes, so this strategy has worked out great for Apple. Some of the great products developed this way are iLife, iTunes, iPod, iPhone, and of course OS X or should we say NeXT. Sure there have been a few misses like the Lisa, Apple TV (ok TBD), HiFi, etc. but for the most part, there has been many more successes than failures.

This develop what Steve likes strategy for Apple, and has lead to amazing profits and growth at Apple.(Was going to talk about the stock price here, but that’s not lookin so hot) Sure it has been great for Apple, shareholders, and consumers, but this is going to be a major problem for Apple when Steve leaves. Apple has turned into a company that is completely dependent on Steve Jobs. Others come up with ideas and develop great products, but Jobs is the ultimate decision maker on if new products get developed and go to market.

This has left a void at Apple in the area of consumer research, customer retention, and customer service. These three areas leave them vulnerable to a backlash from consumers as they continue to grow and Steve gets closer to moving to Denver and joining a cult of people who wear Levi’s and a black mock turtlenecks.

TBC…