To a degree, acceptance of consistency is relative to the competitive environment. You somewhat accept Apple’s transgressions perhaps because the alternatives in their industry don’t do a better customer experience job.

However, I believe that we are starting to step outside of industry silos when evaluating customer service. If airline X’s customer experiences can be consistently positive, why can’t retailer Y’s?

We are in the early battles of the customer experience war. A war where I believe that ultimately the customer will be the winner.

Hank Brigman
hbrigman@touchpointguru.com

Thank you for the reminder on Lean Thinking. I am a big fan of Agile methodologies, which has been heavily influenced by Lean Thinking. Though I haven’t talked much about Agile, it was one of my initial posts. Lean Product Development has been making inroads in the software industry. In future blogs, I’ll plan to incorporate more aspects of Lean Thinking. In the mean time, I definitely look forward to sharing more of your inputs and insights with the KiteTail readers. Thank you.

–B

Thank you for pointing to the Customer Relationship Lifecycle. Your comment regarding the importance of consistency in delivery is a notable one. Though I am a happy Apple customer, there are things about the company I don’t enjoy, such as when there is a known software quality issue with a product they don’t quite own up to it. As much as I don’t like some of these qualities, I have learned to accept and appreciate Apple for the value they deliver. In a way, that is a definition of loyalty.

–B

Thank you. Your point is well taken regarding Apple’s service and parts inventory. The fact that the Apple store did not have the necessary parts in inventory was a surprise. My issue was specific, I had spent the time on the phone talking to Apple support and got redirected to the Apple Store for next steps in problem validation. With that, they should be able to validate all the parts and expertise is available in the store before scheduling the appointment. Yet, in this case it wasn’t done. However, going back to glass half-full (call me Pollyanna :)), if you have an HP system, what do you do? Though, this maybe a future blog on looking at closed vs. open systems.

Also, thank you for pointing to the latest Porter article on HBR. “The Five Competitive Forces That Shape Strategy” is freely viewable at the HRB’s January 2008 site.

–B

Love your post. A key to Apple’s success is that it CONSISTENTLY delivers positive Touchpoints across its customer lifecycle. As good as this experience was, if your other Touchpoints with Apple were not positive, it would impact your relationship with the Apple brand.

While your customer lifecycle is useful to many organizations, I suggest a Customer Relationship Lifecycle that is more ubiquitous. This model is about the relationship with the customer and is applicable to every organization and its targets with time the only variable (you will go through the stages faster buying a can of soup than a car or house). The stages of the relationship lifecycle are: Awareness, Knowledge, Consideration, Selection, Satisfaction, Loyalty, Advocacy.

A key is consistent delivery of Touchpoints across all stages of the relationship lifecycle. By consistency, I am referring to quality (meeting customer needs), delivery (mark/look/feel delivery and similar experiences with similar Touchpoints), message (Touchpoints are consistent with marcom messages regarding experiences), and image (e.g. the image of each of Tiffany’s Touchpoints will be consistent with its luxury brand image).

I suggest that delivering consistency at every Touchpoint along the customer relationship lifecycle is delivering value.

Hank Brigman
hbrigman@TouchpointGuru.com

Excellent comments about the Porter methodology, especially clarifying the difference between his value chain and value system concepts, which most people confuse.

Your example about Apple service is an interesting one because the same events you experienced could be used to demonstrate the opposite, depending upon one’s expectations. Specifically, should a customer not expect Apple’s holistic value system to predict, coordinate and maintain sufficient parts inventory at the Apple Store?

I think it’s like the glass half-full or half-empty viewpoint on customer service.

Again, great piece on Porter (who had another great article in this month’s Harvard Business Review).

Cheers,
Alan S. Michaels
Co-founder http://www.eCompetitors.com