Surface Ripples

Manage Customer Complaints Effectively

Customer and corporate needs are often opposed. Nowhere is this better illustrated than a recent case with Apple’s “App” Store.

“Apps” are proliferating in the market and offer various functions ranging from the banal to the highly esoteric. Nowadays, you can find an “App” for almost anything. Some are free, some you have to pay for.

One “App” lets users read books published in “Kindle” format. “Kindle” is an electronic book (or “eBook”) reading programme for Amazon’s “Kindle” eBook reader. The Kindle device can store thousands of eBooks – handy when you go on holiday and want to minimise bulk and weight.

Amazon realised that to achieve the volumes to make money from selling eBooks, they needed more than just their own eBook device. Their answer: produce a Kindle “App” that could be downloaded free onto smartphones or tablet devices. Problem was, some of these were the Apple iPhone and iPad, and Apple has its own competing iBook “App”. Until last year, the Kindle “App” allowed users to purchase directly from the Amazon Kindle eBook store by pressing an icon (picture) on the screen of their mobile device.

The "App" changed and stated clearly that the icon to the Kindle store had been removed. This didn’t stopped people downloading it and then writing outraged reviews about how Apple was “stifling competition”. The fact that you could save the link to the Kindle bookstore (as at least one person pointed out) somewhat negated the cries of pain. Equally, Amazon’s Kindle doesn’t permit downloading any other eBook “Apps” or of eBooks in other than Kindle format – surely just as “anti-competitive”?

The point is that some users of Apple’s devices felt hurt that an “App” that they knew and love had been altered to satiate what they saw as corporate greed.

Once the outraged cries had died down, what happened? Apple clearly upset a small number of fans. Did they abandon their Apple iPod Touch devices, iPhones and iPads? Probably not, but Apple risked being seen (albeit by a noisy minority) as concerned only with profits.

Could this have been managed better? Of course – with just a simple note on the “App Store” as to how to get round the problem. Someone didn’t think about customer loyalty…

I have spent more than half my life working in different world markets from the most developed to “emerging” economies. With more than 20 years in the world financial services industry running different service, operations and lending businesses, I started my own Performance Management Consultancy and work with individuals, small businesses, charities, quoted companies and academic institutions across the world. An international speaker, trainer, author and fund-raiser, I can be contacted by email . My website provides a full picture of my portfolio of services.

Labels: Crisis Management, Customer Care, Selling, Strategy

posted by William Martin @ 16:47