Apple

There’s no doubt Tim Cook has a very tough job. When he stepped in as CEO of Apple he was following in the footsteps of one of the most—if not the most—iconic entrepreneurs in history. Every step would be scrutinized by a legion of die hard fans and magnified a thousandfold.

In a pymnts.com article titled One Banker’s View Of Apple Pay Threats, the SVP of a large bank indicated:

“Though Apple gets a piece of every transaction, the company provides no help to banks in making sure their cards are “top of wallet” for use, or helping users decide which card is best of each situation.”

I wonder if you have noticed something about the world of business? You may have not noticed it as this feature of business life is pervasive, so enduring, that lies in the background. I found myself reawakened to this feature recently.

Apple, John Lewis, Amazon: Masters of the Customer Experience?

Holidays are over and three organisations stand out for me: Apple, John Lewis, and Amazon. Why? It occurs to me that the people in these organisations get customers as human beings, are clear about the kind of customer experience they are up for delivering, AND have put in place a system for delivering this kind of customer experience.

I was teaching a class for FIT earlier this week and talking about retail experiences. I brought up a slide of an Apple store and mentioned how there is no background music at the Apple stores that I visit and how that goes against the grain of retail pundits who spend great effort building play lists that encourage people to shop and buy. 

I get this all the time.  Whenever we talk about Design Thinking’s user-centered approach to finding opportunities and understanding your customer better, someone always reminds me that one of the worlds most successful company (in my humble opinion), Apple, does not do market or user research.

Similarly, Scott Anthony writes:

Now I’m going to count to 5, could you please tell me what the guiding vision/direction of your company is …right…NOW…5,4,3,2,1…. Awwww, too bad, I was so hoping you could play it back to me.