11 April 2007
Blackfriars' Marketing: Behind the scenes: why Apple's customer base is so loyal and enthusiastic
Blackfriars' Marketing: Behind the scenes: why Apple's customer base is so loyal and enthusiastic
The obvious side to Apple's customer satisfaction lies in their attention to detail in every facet of product development. All their products are designed, at every stage, with the customer clearly in mind and each product is tailored to make it as easy to use as possible for the customer, regardless of how technically savvy or not they may be.
The less obvious side involves two keywords: freedom and choice.
In The Tyranny of Too Much, we explain how too much choice is a problem, a significant problem even. Recapitulating, too many options to choose from will increase our expectations and decrease our satisfaction with the choice we've made. Barry Schwartz's book, The Paradox of Choice, explains it in great detail and is well worth a read.
This presents a problem for businesses, because it means that to satisfy customers they ought to give them less to choose from; however, our western society is so focused on offering choice that this almost certainly seems like a poor business decision. After all, choice is — for better or worse — transparently linked to freedom, and freedom is what today's society is all about. But the fact of the matter is that less choice, and consequently less freedom, is what actually liberates us as customers because it gives us greater satisfaction.
Apple is one of the very few companies that get this — and yet, they get chided for it much more so than praised.
via Good Morning Silicon valley
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