I came across a post on why Apple’s customer base is so loyal and enthusiastic. As summarized by others, it’s because Apple users are “just very satisfied customers.” Great. I’m not in that category sadly. And it’s a shame.
Let me tell you that I have found this out first hand, for better or worst.
Funny, sad, but true story:
Last week I posted something on this blog about an experience I had with Apple. It was not a good one. Ultimately, I called them, spoke to six people, and thought the matter was resolved: they were going to send me an email with a shipping label. Unbeknownst to me, the post was picked up by MacSurfer. The initial feedback, while generally highly critical of me, was fair in the sense that I was writing about my bad experience, and others were pointing out their positive experiences. Of course, with comments, you get nasty ones, that’s just “part of the Web.”
Then Seeking Alpha picked up the post… which in turn meant that Yahoo! Finance picked it up. By then, I had not only offended loyal Apple users/consumers, I had offended Apple shareholders. That, was inexcusable, I learned.
Throughout the day, I began to say: “shareholders or users notwithstanding, if Apple has such a loyal base, then maybe it’s just me.”
So I called Apple back to see how come I never got the promised email from Apple support employee #6. Turns out that the six people I spoke to never actually documented anything, and to add insult to injury, my name was not Ashkan Karbasfrooshan, but Bob Smith. How did I find this out? When I called yesterday and gave them the case number, the agent called me Bob.
“Who’s Bob?” I asked.
“Sorry, I mean Mr. Smith…” was his answer.
“Who’s Bob Smith?” I thought, that’s when the big joke was on me. Even the reps yesterday acknowledged this. Mind you, it’s been nearly 24 hours and still no email, also checked my spam folder, nada.
I am not going to comment on Apple users, its loyal customer base, the quality of its product or whether its stock will go up or down, but I know arrogance when I see it. You cannot, after all, make this up. As I frequently do, I actually contacted a number of Apple PR folks last night, and in all fairness to some Apple user/shareholders, a few actually emailed Investor Relations… this morning Apple Canada’s Executive Relations team called me. They acknowledged that this was not exactly company protocol, and they did confirm that my name on the file was Ash Smith. I gave them my first name yesterday but no longer had the patience to go through everything, tell them the story, give them my last name, having done it at least 8 times already. At the same time, Apple’s IR team sent the email to its US Executive Relations team.
Suffice to say, most people have lives and would not go through all of this, they would simply accept it and become frustrated, in silence. That’s not me.
In business, this shows two things (independent of the company)
- Service is more important than innovation in so many ways, when I called Apple last Thursday, I was not even sure if I wanted a replacement or a refund.
- Arrogance will catch up to any company. A few years ago, Michael Dell was asked what he’d do if he ran Apple, he said “I’d give shareholders back their money and shut down the company,” today Apple is worth more than Dell. To me, and me only, Apple is arrogant now. Unless they change, it will catch up with them. I also think Google is arrogant. But that’s another post, on another day.
With regards to the Web, this proved one thing to me:
- comments are great but they are also the Web’s (or a website or blog’s) downfall. Go through, if you wish, the comments on my original post or those on Seeking Alpha. I have a thick skin and can handle myself, I even enjoy it. But folks, what’s that saying?
Right: Arguing online is like the Special Olympics, Even if you win you’re still retarded.
Besides, the remotely intelligent feedback and constructive criticism gets drowned out by sheer, utter nonsense. One commenter accused me of having an agenda. An agenda? We are talking about a $200 piece of hardware, right?
Comments, while the epitome of Web 2.0 is also its downfall. Sometimes, it’s good for feedback. My former employer added comments to their sites recently, and they are getting long-overdue comments as per how lame their articles are. Had they been privy to such comments, they could have improved the quality of their content.
But generally speaking, comments tend to represent a slippery slope. Digg is a victim of that today.
On this blog, I approve all comments, and once we upgrade to a more powerful anti-comment spam solution we might automate them as well, because blogs and comments go hand in hand, but on general websites, I think it’s a cheap publisher tool to get average time spent on a site to go up. But, like the Google arrogance topic, is a post for another day.
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