There are many good questions that can be asked about Apple. We’re not going to look at any of those today, though.
Forbes contributor Lois Geller asks, “Why Doesn’t Apple Have A Real Loyalty Program?” (No link but tip o’ the antlers to @JonyIveParody.)
Yeah, like a punch card! Buy ten Macs and get the eleventh Mac free. (Mac must be of equal or lesser value. One per customer. Void where prohibited by law.)
A better question would be “Why doesn’t the Forbes contributor network have a vetting process?”
I started thinking about Apple and loyalty last week when my assistant’s MacBook Pro started acting up.
Oh, sure, you only think of loyalty when you need it. Well, Lois, loyalty is a two-way street!
I’ve bought so many Macs, iPhones, iPads, and iPods over the years – for both me and my agency – that if Apple were an airline, I’d be traveling on frequent flier miles for the next year.
That’s a very good point! Except it’s not actually an airline. But, other than that …
But Apple doesn’t really have a loyalty program. And everybody I talk to tells me the same thing: Apple doesn’t need a loyalty program. And the reason seems to be that Apple’s customer base loves the company. Maybe.
No, not “maybe.” Apple builds loyalty by making its products better. Loyalty programs are designed for industries where companies have a hard time differentiating their product: airlines and hotels, for example. Does that sound like Apple to you? If so, check your stove—you may have left the gas on again.
Apple may not have a Loyalty Program but its CEO, Tim Cook, seemed to launch a Disloyalty Program when he told investors to “get out of his stock” if they didn’t believe in global warming.
Ah, the Macalope sees what you did there! By adding three letters to “loyalty” you have created what is known in the Common Speech of Midgard as “a zinger”! Take that Tim Cook! And the environment!
The Apple Store offers machines with Retina Display (“… all flash architecture … take the notebook to a place it’s never been …”) and a lot of memory. Not even sure what that means.
Well, you certainly seem like the perfect person to be talking about technology, then.
You may have also inadvertently come up with the motto for the Forbes contributor network: “Not even sure what that means.”
Normally, I’d just march into the Apple Store, tell the salesperson what I have and that I want something similar but better and faster. Only one problem. The Apple store is crowded, with lineups.
Just another sign of how badly Apple needs a loyalty program.
I have never received anything for all my loyalty and money.
Other than the computers and phones and software and support and stuff.
So, if I owned Apple, I might want to do something to “reward, and therefore encourage, loyal buying behavior” by my customer base in a rapidly changing world, especially if Tim Cook is going to be insulting huge chunks of the population.
So, this is all about the global warming thing (which, of course, was not just about global warming but environmental sustainability in general)? “I got nothing extra when I bought my MacBook! And I didn’t get any arsenic in my drinking water! One star!”
If I ever received anything from Apple, I would think a lot more positively about the company.
If you’ve been sending them money and haven’t been receiving products and services in exchange then you’ve got a bigger problem than a loyalty program can fix.
It does explain why you’re part of the Forbes contributor network, though.