Brand Strategy & Customer Experience

I am often fascinated by the actions that brands and companies take. While my companies are far from perfect, my goal is to constantly improve and refine the experiences provided.

Recently my computer, a Mac, chose not to reboot. This led to my computer being repaired three times over a 14 day period. During that time, I spent a few hours in two separate Apple stores in Virginia and have personal experiences to share.

The Apple experience is divided into two categories: pre-sales amazing optimism, and the repair line ‘baby-please-don’t-leave’ mentality.

Pre-sales, there are all the benefits of owning Apple products, and there is a focus on making my life easier.

Post-sales, there seems to be a discontinuity. After my computer chose not to restart, I spoke to Apple Care. Since my computer is 37 months old and my three-year Apple care had expired, my options were to pay $50 for a one-time repair incident, or to bring the laptop into a store. After scheduling an appointment, I checked in two minutes before the scheduled time and proceeded to wait 30 minutes for service. It turns out that my graphics card had been recalled last year, but no one had reached out to me to let me know. Bottom line: it would take five to seven days to fix the computer.

After some cajoling, I had the tech check with another Apple store and was able to go to that store, which reduced that initial time frame to three to five days. Fast forward. My computer is back in hand. Within 72 hours, the computer stops charging, and again, I find myself in a similar situation, except for the fact that my fiancee waited an hour in store to drop off my computer as I was traveling (don’t let great help leave). After another replacement, I picked up the computer three days later with the promise that things should be working. However, apparently there was a miscommunication, since I didn’t receive all the screws to keep the case closed and some of the molding had cracked off while in their care. The third trip, only a three hour repair, did the trick (for at the last five days at least).

Perhaps I am the outlier, and the only customer to whom this has happened. But let’s look at larger lessons.

While at the Genius bar, I watched as streams of frustrated people came in and were told a mix of, “We will fix it this time,” to “Did you think we weren’t going to find the unsupported piece of software on your iPhone?” to, “This will cost you $1,500 and there is nothing we can do.”

This made me think about the touch points that are critical in a business. If you can identify areas where a customer would defect, deepen, or increase their emotional connection to your brand, optimize around that experience so you can win.

When my computer broke and was created a three-hour non-billable trip, I kept thinking, will Sony / Dell or someone else be the next computer I own? That was the first time I had considered a new computer in years, and it wasn’t going to be with the brand that just failed me and wasted my time.

What would have been excellent would have been if I walked in and was told, “Your computer is broken. It can be fixed, and here are your three options:

1. We can swap your hard drive our and you can be out of here in 15 minutes (this would require some design changes, but it’s not insurmountable long term) for a fee;
2. You can upgrade to a new computer for a larger fee;
3. We can fix your computer and it will be done within one to seven days.”

Apple is a luxury brand and charges accordingly. They should match that with the service and post-sales experience, not just pre-sales. With these options, the support representative on the phone could have directed me to a store with the proper inventory and likely captured less of my time and frustration and more revenue.

When would a customer defect, deepen, or increase the emotional connection to your brand, and how can you improve those times?