The Apple Experience: Secrets to Building Insanely Great Customer Loyalty (22 page)

Many people say that Apple stores are popular because of the quality of the products. Of course, that’s partly true. If your products stink, it’s going to be harder, if not impossible, to turn those products into a memorable experience. But according to Ron Johnson, “People come to the Apple Store for the experience, and they’re willing to pay a premium for that. There are lots of components to that experience, but maybe the most important—and this is something that can translate to any retailer—is that the staff isn’t focused on selling stuff. It’s focused on building relationships and trying to make people’s lives better.”
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Your customers care about finding meaning in their lives, and oftentimes they aren’t aware of how a product or service can bring out talents or abilities they didn’t even know they had. Help them unleash their inner genius, and you’ll create a loyal customer for life.

W
hen Steve Jobs passed away on October 5, 2011, the world didn’t just lose one of its great visionaries, but it also lost an astonishing corporate storyteller. His presentations, “Stevenotes” as they were fondly called, had all the elements of a Broadway production, including a cast, drama, heroes, villains, and props. Most people use presentations to deliver information, often dryly. Steve Jobs gave presentations that informed, educated, and entertained.

The most memorable parts of Jobs’s presentations were what I call wow moments. These wow moments were carefully scripted and exhaustively rehearsed. It took an estimated 450 hours of work and rehearsals to create and deliver the twenty-minute presentation to introduce the Lion operating system in June 2011. Jobs was fanatical about each and every element of the presentation from the lighting to the messages. He knew the content of every slide, every font, and every color that was used on every slide. But nothing
was more important in a presentation than the moment when the audience would gasp and say to themselves,
I need that!

No matter how sensational you think your product is, nobody is going to care if the message you’re using to communicate the product’s benefits is dry, confusing, and convoluted. Neuroscientist John Medina taught me that the brain does not pay attention to boring things. It is simply not programmed to grasp abstract concepts.

Instead he recommends creating an emotionally charged event, which is the equivalent of a mental Post-it Note for the brain. Medina says the brain’s amygdala is chockful of the neurotransmitter dopamine. So when the brain detects an emotionally charged event (e.g., joy, fear, surprise), the amygdala releases dopamine into the system that greatly aids memory and information processing. Let’s recall three of Jobs’s emotionally charged events:

When it came time to launch the Macintosh, the machine that revolutionized personal computers, Jobs wanted a television spot that would put a stamp on people’s minds. The ad agency Chiat/Day developed the famous Big-Brother-themed “1984” ad, which ran only once during Super Bowl XVIII. More than 90 million people saw the ad, and it became the most admired television ad for the next two decades. Amazingly, the ad was nearly scrapped. When Jobs previewed the ad for the Apple board in December 1983, they hated it. Apple CEO John Sculley admitted he got cold feet. Jobs eventually won the argument, of course, but the story reminds us that Jobs intuitively understood the power of emotion in building a brand.

The 1984 television ad wasn’t the only wow moment Jobs had up his sleeve. In what is still considered one of the most dramatic reveals of any product in history, Jobs introduced the Macintosh with a magician’s flourish. On January 24, 1984, the Macintosh became the first computer to introduce itself. After building the audience’s anticipation with a deftly crafted speech with IBM playing
the narrative’s antagonist, Jobs whipped the audience into a frenzy of excitement. He then walked to the center of the stage where the Macintosh had been sitting in a cloth bag on a small table. Jobs pulled out the computer, attached the keyboard and mouse, and put in a floppy disk. The theme from
Chariots of Fire
began to play, and the words
MACINTOSH INSANELY GREAT
scrolled on the screen. The graphics were unlike anything anyone had ever seen on a computer. Jobs smiled, turned to the audience, and said, “We’ve done a lot of talking about Macintosh, but today, for the first time, I’d like to let Macintosh speak for itself.”
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The audience gasped and cheered as they heard the computer say,
Hello, I’m Macintosh. It sure is great to get out of that bag
. Without the benefit of PowerPoint or Apple Keynote (both of which had yet to be invented), Jobs gave one of the most awe-inspiring product launches in history.

The iPod began Apple’s transformation from a computer company into a brand that would make devices to change the way we live, work, and play. On October 23, 2001, Jobs unveiled the iPod—a music player that came with 5 GB of storage, not a revolutionary advance in technology. But Jobs had a wow moment in his pocket, literally. He said 5 GB of storage was enough to carry 1,000 songs. Oh, and there was one more thing … 1,000 songs fit in your pocket. The size of the iPod—along with its ease of use—made it different. “I just happen to have one right here in my pocket,”
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said Jobs as he pulled an iPod from the front pocket of his signature blue jeans.

On January 9, 2007, Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone and gave what I consider his greatest presentation. As he did twenty years earlier in the Macintosh presentation, he began by building the anticipation. “Every once in a while a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything,”
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he said. He reminded his audience that Apple had introduced the Macintosh, which revolutionized
the computer industry, and the iPod that revolutionized the music industry. “Today we’re launching three revolutionary products of this class,” Jobs added. “The first one is a widescreen iPod with touch controls. The second is a revolutionary mobile phone. And the third is a breakthrough Internet communications device.” Jobs slowly repeated each of the devices once, a second time, and a third. Finally he concluded, “Are you getting it? These are not three separate devices. This is one device, and we are calling it, iPhone!”

Steve Jobs knew how to turn a presentation into an awe-inspiring and memorable event. He was the consummate salesman, and his techniques work just as well on the sales floor as they did on the presentation stage.

Siri is the personal assistant first introduced on the iPhone 4S. Siri lets you use your voice to ask questions, send messages, schedule activities, place phones calls, and much more. Because Siri knows what you say, understands what you mean, and even talks back, it provides thousands of memorable moments at Apple Stores.

Apple senior vice president of worldwide marketing, Phil Schiller, introduced Siri on October 4, 2011. Before Schiller revealed Siri, he spent the first twenty minutes of his presentation introducing the new iPhone 4S and its improved features: graphics, gaming, photographs, and video. “It’s the most amazing iPhone yet,”
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Schiller said. “But I haven’t told you the best feature.” And with that Schiller introduced Siri with this Twitter-friendly headline: “Siri is your intelligent assistant that helps you get things done just by asking.”

Apple’s senior vice president of iPhone software, Scott Forstall, then took the stage to demonstrate Siri. He began by asking it simple questions such as, “What is the weather like today?” Siri responded by saying, “Here is the forecast for today.” Then came the wow moment. Forstall wanted to demonstrate that Siri understands words and context, the meaning behind the words. “Do I need a raincoat today?” Forstall asked Siri. “It sure looks like rain today,” Siri responded.

Forstall continued to demonstrate context by asking Siri to find a Greek restaurant in Palo Alto. Siri returned this response: “I
found fourteen Greek restaurants. Five of them are in Palo Alto. I’ve sorted them by rating.” Forstall concluded the demo with this question: “Who are you?” Siri responded, “I am a humble personal assistant.” The audience laughed and cheered. The mental Post-it had been stuck on their brains.

Apple sales professionals demonstrating the Siri technology encourage customers to challenge the personal assistant with questions. Some of the most common questions include “What is the weather like today?” or “Where can I hide a dead body? (Siri offers a flip response to the effect that it’s illegal to do that and then points you to the nearest cemetery.) But in many cases customers are challenging Siri with far more involved questions such as “What is the meaning of life?” Apple employees encourage customers to stump Siri. It becomes a game where everyone—employees and customers—is having great fun. Customers get a laugh when a Specialist will ask Siri, “Are there other smartphones?” Siri’s response: “There are other smartphones?”

Some Apple Specialists will turn it into a game with a group of customers. A Specialist demonstrating Siri to one customer might notice another customer watching and encourage the second customer to participate in the fun. Pretty soon the second customer is wowed, and a third, a fourth, and so on. Siri is one example where shared wow moments have even more impact than private moments. The employee plays an important role in the narrative.

It’s also important to customize wow moments for the customer. An Apple employee recently shared with me a time when he was talking to a business professional about the iPhone 4S and he encouraged the customer to ask Siri about a business project. The employee explained that Siri understands what you
say
and what you
mean
. The customer proceeded to describe a concept he had for a business. “Tell me about other companies with similar ideas,” he asked Siri. The personal assistant took a couple of minutes to return a response, but it gave the customer an answer that left the man in awe. The customer probed deeper. He would ask questions such as “What are the legal ramifications?” and so on. Siri would respond, “I have what I believe is your answer,” and provided a link to a legal website. Both employee and customer were pleasantly surprised.
Both were learning about Siri’s capabilities at the same time. The customer had experienced a wow moment, and the employee had a new wow moment he could replicate with another customer.

If the business customer had simply picked up the phone, the sale might never have happened, because (1) he might not have considered having a conversation with the phone, and (2) he would not have thought of asking Siri business-related questions. Instead, the customer learned that Siri could be a powerful business tool but only after a well-trained employee facilitated the conversation, leading the customer to a personalized wow moment.

Connect wow moments to people’s lives. One Apple employee said that in ten minutes he sold a MacBook to a customer who had spent four years considering whether he should convert from PC to Mac. The Specialist “listened” carefully to the customer’s concerns (step four of the five steps of service) and heard some key words:
photos
and
children
. The Specialist launched into a true, personal story about his own experience with iPhoto, Apple’s photo editing and managing software that comes installed on every Mac.

The Specialist explained that he had spent one hour on iPhoto and created a gorgeous book that he had sent to one of his daughters who could not join the family for the holidays, the first time she had spent the special occasion away. The employee explained that with iPhoto he could have the book delivered on a specific date, so he timed the delivery to land on his daughter’s birthday along with a customized birthday wish. The daughter called her father in tears, the dad started crying as well, and they both shared a special moment. With one benefit and one personal story, the Specialist had created a wow moment. In less than ten minutes he had persuaded a customer to make a purchase the customer had put off for several years. It’s a true story that the Specialist had used before and will use again, provided the context is appropriate. But it’s important to note that the Specialist was armed with the wow moment. He had it and pulled it out when he needed it to close the sale.