Apple has had a stellar reputation among their consumers for quite some time now. There really isn’t a brand out there today that has such stark loyalty as Apple does. People will cut friends out of group chats if they cause a text message to pop up green. (Okay, I admit it! I’m “people”!) It can’t be denied that Apple’s brand is incredibly powerful. In just about any online list on brand loyalty, Apple ranks among the top echelons.
Apple is one of the most respected brands in the country and this reputation as having inelastic customers is one of the many reasons why. When Apple speaks, people take notice.
Recently, Apple announced their latest operating system, iOS 13 with a lot of important changes and updates. To learn more specifically how those updates affect you, you can read our blogs going deeper into iPad changes and dark mode, and location data changes. And we’ve noticed that these changes all are focused around their customers and bettering the experiences they’ll have with Apple products.
Consider the changes below:
iPhones Go Dark
Dark mode has been a request from the Apple community for years and the company has finally responded. Although it seems simple, the change has been a resounding success in the Apple community. Easier on the eyes, better for your battery, the update was entirely focused on providing the option for the user to have their best experience.
Emphasis on Productivity
Multi Window support in iPad is also a customer-focused update. iPad has allowed for two windows to be opened in a split screen, Apple took it one step further by making it possible to have the same app opened twice. Now, you’ll be able to have one window of Safari opened researching the best hotels in Punta Cana while you have another window of Safari opened on the other side of the screen looking up the best excursions nearby.
This update pushes Apple’s usability and productivity capabilities forward. Users have begun to adopt these changes and productivity increases. Users no longer have to keep switching between web pages or different emails. Multi Window was Apple’s move to making a better customer experience with their iPads.
The third main update with iOS 13 was Apple’s changes to location data. Data has been in the limelight for some time now, such as when Facebook experienced one of the biggest scandals of 2018 when the Cambridge Analytica story broke that the firm harvested the data of 87 million people through a quiz app the vast majority of the victims didn’t even use. And while the vast majority of consumer data usage is legal and communicated, it still remains a prevalent topic of discussion among consumers and lawmakers.
Apple’s reason for this decision is up for debate, but the fact of the matter is that it aligns with industry trends. Users want more transparency with how their data is being used and Apple is providing users with control instead of developers. The change, at its core, improves the user experience. Users will now have the power to deny location data to apps that don’t really need it—ringtone apps don’t need users’ location data.
This provides an opportunity for apps to build trust with their users. Communicate the value you can bring to them if they allow location permissions to your app. Whether you wish to send them location-specific promotions, help them with their commute, speed up the shipping address input process—letting your users know how their location data is being put to use at their benefit will result in more location data permissions granted and more trust between brand and consumer. The market trend is transparency and leaning into the trend will improve your relationship with your users in the long run.
Through these three major updates, Apple has improved their user experience, productivity, usability, and security, all to the benefit of the consumer. So what does it all mean?
Remember: Apple is a brand customers have fierce loyalty towards. A deep love of their products takes them a long way, but a great customer experience has as much to do with their brand loyalty as it does the quality of their products. Brands need to act like Apple in that sense—a great product is fantastic but delivering an equally great customer experience is just as imperative.
How brands get to their best customer experience is by following Apple’s lead. Brands must listen, adapt, and personalize toward each customer.
Listening—it’s an important part of a relationship, including the one between a brand and a consumer. Brands can listen to their customers through a variety of channels. But this is only possible with access to strong analytics. With an analytics tool, brands are able to understand each interaction with every digital touchpoint to truly be able to home in on actionable insights. Long gone are the days of calling a number on a box and responding to “how are we doing?”
Consumers now have more options to air out their feelings toward brands—there’s email, social, mobile, web, in-person, call centers, you name it. There’s a bevy of options for customers to tell you what they love and what they don’t. And analyzing each of these touchpoints can lead to actionable insights. Experiment with these insights through A/B testing to find what is most effective with your users.
Personalization is another approach Apple has taken that buys into the customer-centric mentality of everything Apple does. Think of it, each update above gave consumers an option. Do you want to switch to dark mode or continue with regular? Would you like to open the same app twice in split screen? Now you can. Would you like *fill in the blank* app to continue accessing your location information? The consumer has a choice in how they use the product. The power is put into their hands.
Personalization of the customer experience is Apple’s strategy and one that brands should follow suit. And personalization looks different for each brand. Brands may not be offering dark mode/light mode tech-centric options, but instead, they’ll be sending a message to a customer that is relevant to their life, at the best time for them to receive it, on their preferred device. Personalization, in any form, will be appreciated from the customers and will boost your engagements and ROI for your campaigns.
Consumers interact with brands multiple times a day even if they don’t step foot in your shop. They receive marketing messaging, open your apps, post on social media or see you on social media, the list goes on. A personalized experience when it comes to how you and your consumers directly interact can be a way for your brand to follow in Apple’s footsteps of creating a best-in-class customer experience.
Adapting to your customers wants and needs to offer them relevant experiences will increase brand loyalty similar to as it does for Apple. By offering up personalized experiences, consumers will be more engaged and less likely to churn from your communications.
Apple has just about perfected their customer experience and that has been a large part of their success. Brands must take after their lead if they want to stay relevant and competitive. It’s not simply about the product, it’s about the whole experience. To be at your best for your customers, you’ve got to get personal.