There was an interesting conversation that went by on a private list for MyMac writers. I can quote everyone, and blog the thread; but that would have a lot of bulk and would be a tad raw. Or I can do what I’m going to do; edit, paraphrase, and clean up, but still share the gist.
It all started with Tim Robertson pointing out that he got the Dr. Gil Amelio interview for the podcast. That’s quite a get; Ex-CEO of Apple Computer, National Semiconductor, and a general silicon valley heavyweight. Tim solicited the writers list for possible question, then told us all “that question is already on the list” when we made suggestions. Seems we were there more for moral support and sanity checking the question list — but a few new ones got through, so we collaborated a little. We were all throwing out questions like, “what’s new since Apple”, and trying to diplomatically word questions like, “is Apple better now”, “how do you feel about Steve/Apple” and stuff like that. I suggest you listen to the podcast to hear the final (polished) questions and answers.
In the process of our thread, Carmel had a bit of a pointed question asking about Apple’s remarkable customer loyalty, and somewhat questionable customer service (both historically and especially of late), and what Dr. Gil thought of that. The inference was that Apple’s support was sometimes questionable, but does he realize how much worse it is today, and so on. (Or at least, that was how I, and some others, read it).
Carmel and I weren’t in complete agreement.
I pointed out that Oz (Australia, the land of killer everything, and host to Carmel’s domicile) and America may not be completely in sync. Over here, I feel that Apple has cycled up and down; with their customer support being either the best in the computer industry (still not saying much), to quite a bit lower than it was, but still in the top few companies. Most people are complaining about the drop, without objectively comparing it to the competition, which often sucks far worse. That still doesn’t make for a compelling campaign; “we’ll screw you less than our competition” — but is a far cry from being outright hostile to their customers.
The truth is, while I don’t like the trends in customer service, at least when I call Apple they speak english instead of Indian-English with a sing-songy guy (who’s name is Abe Lincoln). And sometimes I can get them to skip the most obvious parts of the script, like “is the computer plugged in”, and “have you tried reformatting everything with the CD-ROM”. So while I sometimes grumble at Apple’s support, I do realize it isn’t the slow painful torture process I go through when I call Microsoft or Dell.
But in relative terms, I always felt like there were times when Apple was more and less customer focused. When Steve has run the company, I would say it was slightly less — both before he left (the first time) because you could only get the computer in configuration and features that Steve wanted, and after he came back because they initially trimmed operations/support and things got much worse. They kind of fired everyone (or drove them out) and started over with the NeXT way of doing things; which took about 5 years to get things back to reasonable.
Not that Apple sans-Steve was near perfect; there were pockets of bad models or when it felt like Apple was overwhelmed (5300, the 1710 monitors, and some performa’s) where quality went to the proverbial hot-spot in a hand-basket. But even in the heart of Apple’s historical problems, I remember my monitor going out, and they shipped me a new one; again, and again, and again, until finally they got one that didn’t spark/pop or fry for a few months. By the last couple replacements, I was well past the end of the warranty, but they still honored it, because I hadn’t had a single monitor during that time. I was impressed, and more than satisfied, even though they had a batch of questionable devices; in fact, I’m still using that monitor today (11 years later). Back then I went through more than a few Performa’s or 5300’s for customers — still, Apple was willing to replace and repair, if you made enough of a stink (and often, not much of one was required).
So I remember that era as the era where the build-quality and reliability suffered, but their actual support and support policies were top-notch. Now Apple’s build quality is a little better (despite occasional quirks), the software is MUCH more stable, but the support is much worse. It is down from a year or three, to 90 days to a year, they are much more likely to blame the customer for a breakage (partly due to the increase in laptops). Much of this is empirical evidence, with my own Titanium Power Book (and the breaking hinges, and motherboard, etc.), as well as places I’ve worked that had problems with batches of eMacs, PowerBooks, or X-Serves. Apple is trying, and is slowly increasing their quality/support back — but are still far from where they were in the mid 90’s.
Turns out the whole diversion was unnecessary. Carmel clarified; she wasn’t complaining about the quality, per say — she more wanted to thread to head towards should Apple recognize their loyal fan base, and figure out a way to reward repeat buyers. She had experiences where she bought iLife near the end of December, only to have it obsoleted a couple weeks later, and no recourse, no upgrade, just a trip to the store to buy the newest version at full price, and stuff like that.
You’d think she questioned the virgin birth; Tim, John and I, all responded with our respective views.
Both my and Tim’s response was that Steve’s view appears to be that the low price and rich quality of iLife justifies the lack of upgrades. My personal view is that it doesn’t really matter that iLife costs less than the competition; a certain percentage are still going to walk away feeling screwed when they mis-time a purchase, or can get discounts on upgrades on everyone but Apple’s software. Tim went into the point that Apple does offer upgrades on their Pro-Products, just not consumer ones.
The thread meandered on, with Carmel asking (again) if Apple could increase their market-share if they rewarded loyalty; “We not only have insanely great products, we reward our insanely great customers”. Feeling that customers are a company’s most precious asset, and Apple should treat them as such. The customers who continued to buy Apple products during those hard times actually helped Apple survive, shouldn’t they pay that back. More so, to the writers that helped, or people that helped sell Macs during those hard times.
Again, the chorus replied. Tim with the fact that despite being a comic books collector for 29 years, his favorite shops hadn’t given him anything for free. Nor did he expect it.
My lecture was more long winded (as usual). By now, I was going.
1) How does Apple compensate those that went to extraordinary means? How do they quantify it? Yes, Auto-makers have programs to offer discounts for repeat buyers — but that’s not as easy with computers. And if Apple built a tracking system to monitor such things, the privacy fanatics and those wearing tinfoil hats would scream bloody murder. I helped sell 100+ machines, not counting the websites I did (or helped with); I worked the first two demo days, and consulted with companies on how to use Macs to make money, and so on. What should Apple do for me? How do they know that’s the truth. I sure wouldn’t want to administrate that program. So no need to try to pioneer.
2) The press can’t understand grays (at all), and Apple is walking a line with them. Many of the advocacy sites are partly seen as fan-sites. The same sites that offered good balances in views, or contrasted bad articles written by lazy/incompetent journalists, also generated 10,000 really vile hate letters from pissed-off fanatics. It would be like being a congressmen in San Francisco or a leader in the middle east — you can be reasonable and sane, but if your constituents aren’t, then people are going to look at you with some skepticism, and sort of wish you weren’t around. (A mixed bag of some help and some hurt). Thus if Apple sides with the fanatical mullahs of the Mac web, and rewards them, they are going to magnify their quantity and power — which is going to turn the entire press against them. To the Press, we’re ALL fanatical mullahs of the Mac web; at least if we did anything but agree with the worst articles by their sloppy reporters, and questioned their poorly vetted and error-ridden stories.
But Carmel did bring up some interesting issues. I agree that Apple should give away a software pack on all machines. I’ve NEVER understood the concept of not giving away AppleWorks or iLife on the higher end machines too. (Pay more, get less, it’s that simple). The marketing illogic is that the higher end people don’t use those packages (they are targeted towards consumers), but it still costs them nothing, and even if people don’t use it, they feel gyped if they don’t get it (and certainly some would use it). That being said, I don’t see it as a loyalty issue — just another example of why marketing, taken to an extreme, can do really stupid/annoying things.
3) Tim had mentioned market-share and the “mass desertion, when Apples market share went from 20% to 5%”.
That set me off. I hate market-share. It is such a deceptive metric. During much of the time the Press was declaring Apple’s demise because of the declining market-share, Mac sales actually grew; they just didn’t grow as fast as the competition did — hence more sales, but less market-share. To me it is like housing. Someone could have bought an above average 1500 sq ft house in 1980. They could have remodeled and added 300 sq ft. recently (and added a lot of amenities and appliances, etc.). They’re still happy and living better than ever. But the national average for new homes is NOW larger (up to like 2200 sq ft). If they buy into the press, and feel like they are living a lesser lifestyle than the average. But if they look at the objective numbers, they can realize that they are living better than they were a generations back. It’s a false perception thing. Apple is selling more machines today than they ever have before, even with a lower market-share.
4) Carmel questioned “disloyal” customers who would desert Apple. My response was that I don’t want loyal customers. Let me explain.
Frugal, business (value) focused buyers should be everyone’s target market. Frankly, I mock the crowd that buys a Porsche to as sort of automotive viagra, or to get chicks and feel young again, and so on. Many others buy that car because it has a great balance of economy and handling, combined with the best brakes in the industry, and so on. If I was Porsche, I’d rather appeal to the one’s who buy my car based on the value of the engineering, than those who buy it because it is a giant facade for their insecurities or to feel better about themselves, and so on. Even if the latter is more likely to be more loyal; after all, value is only as loyal as the price of the current purchase — but insecurity lasts forever. 
Why? Because I think if the value is there, you’re going to get lots of buyers, and they will stay happy. The trendies, and insecure types are loyal at the time, but likely to jump ship at the next trend. While as long as Porsche offers better value, they can keep ALL the value buyers — even if they’ll lose them in a heartbeat if the value drops.
Same with Macs. I want people to buy because it is the best value (even with a slightly higher initial purchase price). The ones that buy because it required to be a good artsy liberal, or to impress their friends, or because it is an industry icon, and so on, may be perceived as more “loyal” customers, but I’m not sure they really are, or are the image of my customers that I’d rather have. In other words, if I was Apple, I’d prefer being seen as having smart business/value focused buyers to counter-cultural granola eating “loyal” San Francisco fanatics. And a lot of your “loyalists” are seen as the latter. (No offense to Owen… who is rumored to eat granola and lives in the bay area).
John kind of summed it all up much better than I did; “It is simple business. Apple rewards its customers by creating great products. You send them money, and they send you cool stuff. They make a profit. Then they build more cool stuff. That’s the reward. Really, that’s all there is to it.” John went on to explain that Apple is a very “cost benefit analysis” and ROI kind of company now. They run the numbers, and if they aren’t going to see an economic benefit to it, they probably aren’t going to do it — even if it seems like a good idea.
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