The Apple Experience: Secrets to Building Insanely Great Customer Loyalty (30 page)

After Schultz’s return to Starbucks, one of the first people he called for advice was Steve Jobs. Both leaders returned to the helm of the companies they started when the future looked bleak. They both succeeded in revitalizing their brands and transforming entire product categories. Jobs reminded Schultz to get the details of the experience just right. By doing so, Schultz was able to reinvigorate the experience and return Starbucks to his original vision of a third place between work and home, an oasis where people could feel uplifted, comforted, and connected.

Walk into Funnel Mill Rare Coffee & Tea on Broadway near Ninth Street in Santa Monica, California, and you’ll feel like you entered a traditional tea garden. Soft music, a beautiful waterfall, and the aroma of freshly roasted beans are just the beginning of the experience. Funnel Mill’s owner, J. C. Ho, has banned the use of cell phones as well as the snapping of photographs. He did so after some of his customers, film directors and movie stars, made the requests. These are just some of the many ways J. C. has transformed coffee
from a commodity product into a remarkable experience that has turned his restaurant into a popular coffee lounge for the rich and famous Hollywood set.

First, the Funnel Mill experience begins with a vision to offer an exceptional level of customer service. Ho told me that when he was working for a computer company, he traveled around the world and enjoyed dropping into coffee shops. But something was always missing. He never discovered a perfect combination of quality and service. “The coffee shops would either offer good food and horrible service or good service and horrible food,”
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he told me.

J. C. and his wife, Teresa, knew they wanted to start a business, and the coffee experience—or lack of one in many places—offered an opportunity to succeed on their own. Most people would have thought the couple was crazy for entering a market crowded with national chains with far more name recognition than they could hope to achieve. But Ho was undeterred because he realized that a superior customer experience could spell success in any field.

J. C. and Teresa spent five years researching the industry and developing a business plan before they opened their store. On their first day they worked from 4:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. and made $17. Despite the slow start, word began to spread, and soon people began to learn that Funnel Mill offered more than coffee and tea; it made exceptionally high-quality coffee and tea drinks with a shot of friendliness. It also paid attention to details most stores and restaurants would easily overlook. Funnel Mill carefully considers every detail.

 

• Open Space.
  J.C. wants to make customers feel relaxed when they enter his lounge, if only for a few minutes during their otherwise hectic day. Fountains evoke a traditional, soothing tea garden. The furniture, made of imported Taiwanese wood, is arranged so customers don’t bump into each other or jostle for a place to sit. At Apple, glass is used to make the retail space lighter and display tables made of wood give warmth to the space. Accessories are placed on side walls so as not to distract customers from the featured attractions—the products on the display tables. Just as Apple does for computers, J.C. under
  stands the roles of space, glass, and wood to create an inviting atmosphere.
  
 

• Greetings.
  In most cases, Funnel Mill customers are greeted with a smile and a warm, friendly “hello” before they reach the counter. Sound familiar?
  
 

• Open Display Area.
  J.C. doesn’t have computers to display, but he still provides theater. The area where J.C. and his staff prepare drinks is open and easy to see because he uses a unique and visual process to make coffee, called “siphoning.” The technique was invented in the 1830s and is very visual. Customers can see J.C. mix, measure, and boil the ideal combination of espresso, water, and milk to create the best coffee I’ve ever had. It’s visual because the equipment resembles something you’d find in a chemistry lab. The process results in an incredibly rich cup of coffee. Most coffee shops don’t use this process, because it requires specialized training, expensive equipment, and time. It takes three to four minutes for an experienced person to prepare each cup.
  
 

• Power Outlets.
  They are everywhere to accommodate customers who want to use their computers.
  
 

• Furniture.
  J.C. imports unique, elegant wooden tables or provides comfortable leather couches arranged to facilitate conversations and informal meetings.
  
 

• Commitment to Quality.
  J.C. purchases only the highest grades of tea and coffee beans that meet his exacting standards.
  
 

• Unique Items.
  J.C. offers unique items not found in the coffee chain one block away, such as the rare Kopi Luwak coffee. At $65 a cup, it’s all the rage with the Hollywood elite. What’s so special about it? Well, it tastes very, very good. It’s quite likely the best coffee you’ve ever had. But its origin might turn you off. It comes from the island of Sumatra where a small mammal called a palm civet eats coffee cherries, including the bean inside. Once the bean finishes its journey through the animal’s digestive tract, the intact beans are harvested, cleaned, and roasted. Yes, it’s literally made from animal poop. I’m not sure
  how many customers actually order the coffee, but people in town talk about it and they know Funnel Mill offers it. It’s a hook that helps word of mouth.
  
 

• Water Filtration System.
  Many restaurants use tap water, and some will use a basic filter. But that’s not good enough for a coffee lounge that wants to raise the bar on the customer experience. Coffee is 98 percent water, and that convinced J.C. to purchase the best water filtration system on the market. It softens the water, uses reverse osmosis to remove contaminants, and even pumps minerals back into the water after the particles have been removed. Details matter.
  
 

• Consistent Delivery.
  I visit Funnel Mill once every two months on business trips to Santa Monica, and each time I go the “packaging” of the product is consistent. Again, no detail is overlooked. Here is how J.C. explained it:
  

Coffees are brought on silver platters. At the twelve o’clock position, we place two types of sugars in small ceramic bowls so you can see how clean and pure the sugar is. The drink is placed at the six o’clock position with the handle positioned at the four o’clock position to make it easy for the customer to pick it up while they’re working on their computer. A napkin and a long-stem spoon is placed in the nine o’clock position, and the customer’s choice of cream is placed at three o’clock. Our ingredients are measured to the gram. I want to make sure that your drink tastes and looks the same each and every time. The experience must be consistent whether you come in tomorrow or a year from now.
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J.C. is obsessed with detail. Schultz is obsessed with detail, and so was Steve Jobs.

In a sad but very revealing story in the Walter Isaacson biography, we learn that Jobs pushed away an oxygen mask during one of his operations for a liver transplant. He demanded to see other options because he didn’t like the design of the mask. Jobs’s curse became our blessing. Jobs brought beauty to technology
and reminded us that retail spaces could be more than four walls used to store and distribute products. They could be architectural landmarks. Apple’s New York City Fifth Avenue “cube” is one of the most photographed sites in the entire city. Ironically, the past history of the location had failed for other retailers because the site is underground. But where most people saw an underground failure, Jobs and his designer, Peter Bohlin, saw a “ceremony of descent.”

Apple continues to demand precision and excellence in everything it does, choosing to focus on every detail of design and the customer experience. They say the devil’s in the details. For Apple the details make the experience positively heavenly.

T
he screens on MacBook computers are set at ninety-degree angles in an Apple Store. The screen’s position forces you to touch the computer, moving the screen to your ideal viewing angle. In One to One workshops, Creatives don’t touch the computer without permission. Instead they guide customers to find the solutions themselves. Everything is connected in the Apple Store for the purpose of encouraging customers to touch, play, and interact with the devices. iPads are connected to the Internet. iMacs, iPod Touches, and MacBooks are as well. Although the products have changed since the first Apple Store opened, connectivity is still a key component of the experience.

When Steve Jobs gave a tour of the first Apple Store in 2001, he highlighted the fact that all of the computers were connected to the Internet. “You can go up to any computer and start surfing, go to your personal website, or do whatever
you want to do on the Internet. It’s pretty great,”
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he said. You can still walk up to any device in the store and start using it—read books on an iPad, play games on an iPod Touch, listen to music on an iPod, or create a presentation on a MacBook, or view photos on an iMac. Steve Jobs intuitively understood that there’s power in touch. By giving Apple’s customers the ability to manipulate the devices for themselves and to play, learn, and have fun, customers would be able to immerse themselves in the ownership experience.

Woman touching iPad in an Apple Store.
Source:
Getty Images

Ron Johnson and Steve Jobs reimagined the retail experience by creating a store that’s more than a store to people. At Apple this meant giving customers the ability to try before they buy, to bring the joy back to the shopping, and to make the store fun. It meant giving more than lip service to “customer engagement.” It meant that the ownership experience was more important than the sale. According to an Apple marketing document designed to celebrate the Apple Store’s tenth anniversary, “around the time we opened the store in Tysons Corner, in 2001, everyone else was trying to talk to their customers less. Which made us think that maybe we should talk to them more. Face-to-face if possible.”
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Apple knew that its stores can and should be centers for creativity. Multisensory experiences were the heart of it.

A few days prior to the first store opening in 2001, Apple placed an ad in national newspapers. The headline read, “5 down. 95 to go.” The text of the ad explains the headline and explains how Apple intended to reimagine the retail experience.

Apple currently has 5 percent market share in personal computers. This means that out of one hundred computer users, five of them use Macs. While that may not sound like a lot, it is actually higher than both BMW’s and Mercedes-Benz’s share of the automotive market. And it equals 25 million customers around the world using Macs. But that’s not enough for us. We want to convince the other 95 people that Macintosh offers a much simpler, richer, and human-centric computing experience. And we believe the best way to do this is to open stores right in their neighborhoods. Stores that let people experience firsthand what it’s like to make a movie on a Mac. Or burn a CD with their favorite music. Or take pictures with a digital camera and publish them on their personal website. Or select from over 300 software titles, including some of the best educational titles for kids. Or talk to a Macintosh Genius at our Genius Bar. Because if only 5 of those remaining 95 people switch to Macs, we’ll double our market share and, more importantly, earn the chance to delight another 25 million customers. Here we go …
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