[Reflection #2] ʃ ......Here’s the secret of their success

"Customers' complaints provide a golden chance to do better."

      At the end of 2017, Apple released "A Message to Our Customers about iPhone Batteries and Performance" on its official website.  Customers' complaints about the slowdown and bad performance of batteries got a quick response from Apple before getting worse.  Apple apologized for any inconvenience caused and cut the price of replacement from $79 to $29,  a big discount.  What the company did quelled the rage to a certain degree and avoided further PR crisis.  
That's one of the benefits of listening to the groundswell.  Apple's products are always regarded as creative and quality products not by itself but by its customers.  However, customers' grievances about its batteries do steal a little bit shine from this one of the most valuable brands in this world, since "the value of brand belongs to the market, and not to the company."  Luckily, Apple knew that listening by itself is sterile so it took actions of price cutting and promised future iOS updates provide more transparent battery performance.

      Another implicit benefit that a manager who carefully listens to clients would enjoy is gaining respect and clouts.   In chapter 5 of Groundswell, when Ellen put her findings of clients out, she impressed other colleagues and impacted decision making;  and Alison Zelen designs marvelous ads since she knows an awful lot about her customers.  They are aware of research is a one-way approach but the community has more lasting value.   Again, focusing on the relationship is time-tested.

"Shouting doesn't work. Conversations do."

      Though the origins of Haier, a home appliances company, date back long before the actual founding of the company in 1984, it has kept up to date these days.  Spectators could notice that Haier won a huge amount of fans on Weibo, one of the most popular social platforms in China.  Why?  That might be related to when people ask themselves why they would purchase a certain product.  Apparently, Haier knows how to talk to the groundswell in the middle of the marketing funnel.  One of the techniques it used is making sensible or humorous comments, as quickly as possible, on the posts from famous users on Weibo—creating the presence on a social network site.  Most of those comments were liked by many users who saw those comments and later became its followers.  Haier also topped a post on its personal homepage, which says "This is a post where Haier will respond to your comments."  It creates an affable and convivial but not official and indifferent image of Haier, which many companies do.  Now, It has received 27,000 comments interacting with Haier.

      In terms of energizing its enthusiasts, Samsung is an expert.  A loyal customer, Shane Bannett asked for a free latest phone and sent a picture of a dragon drawn by himself to Samsung.  Though the company refused that request, it drew a picture back of a unicycling kangaroo to Shane.  Finally, Shane was still satisfied by the phone sent from Samsung, on which customized his fire-breathing dragon artwork, because he then shared both messages and drawing to Reddit where it went viral.  It also supports its customers by establishing a community where people start general discussions and get help from other customers or Samsung technicians. Word of mouth starts from here as well.  Building a community for customers to support each other and joining itself into those discussions not only cut support costs but also help Samsung to design better products.

      In a nutshell, a brand is what customers say it is. That's why companies are supposed to listen to them prudently, talk to them wisely, energize the enthusiasts of them and help them support each other.