“Pundits often refer to them as ‘zealots’ or ‘fanboys.’ The more polite references include ‘Mac loyalists.’ I am, of course, talking about Apple’s more vocal customers, those who will defend the company and its products in any debate going on around them. What is it that drives their passion for most things Apple? Is it a deluded mind, warped by the Reality Distortion Field that Steve Jobs so successfully wraps every new product in? In short, the answer is no,” Aric Winton writes for Blackfriars’ Marketing.
Winton writes, “The truth behind the scenes is not that Apple has a large group of customers that are too dedicated and passionate about their products, or the company as a whole. The reality is far more simple and obvious: Apple simply has a large group of very satisfied customers — and that’s the secret ingredient left out of nearly every analysis or op-ed piece that mentions these ‘zealots.'”
“The obvious side to Apple’s customer satisfaction lies in their attention to detail in every facet of product development. All their products are designed, at every stage, with the customer clearly in mind and each product is tailored to make it as easy to use as possible for the customer, regardless of how technically savvy or not they may be,” Winton writes.
Winton writes, “The less obvious side involves two keywords: freedom and choice.”
Full article – highly recommended – in which Winton explains that “too much choice” in both hardware and software “leads to less satisfaction” and that Apple understands that idea very well, here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “MacUser” for the heads up.]
Related articles:
Apple again leads Consumer Reports’ survey for notebook, desktop computer tech support, value, more – October 16, 2006
Apple Mac desktops, notebooks top PC Magazine’s Annual Reader Satisfaction survey – again – August 22, 2006
Apple far outscores all other PC makers in Consumer Reports Computer Tech Support Survey – May 05, 2006
Apple Mac desktops, portables top PC Magazine’s 2005 Reader Satisfaction survey – August 24, 2005
Apple Computer products top PC Magazine’s annual ‘Best of the Year’ survey – December 16, 2004
Apple Macs top PC Magazine’s ’17th Annual Reader Satisfaction Survey’ – August 10, 2004
Apple leads PC Magazine’s 16th annual Service and Reliability Survey – July 10, 2003
What turns Mac users into these ‘fanboys’ is the opposition they face from PC weenies who know nothing about the platform..
It only follows that if someone criticizes you for your platform choice, you have no recourse but to defend it especially when the person throwing stones has never even tried it.
If PC weenies weren’t so anti-Mac, there would be no reason to be overzealous in the defense of the Mac.
Exactly. People STILL quote nonsense from 1995 as if it applied to Apple today. It’s those people, especially the ones claiming to be experts, that I love to laugh at upon them telling me they had a virus or malware steal their info.
I don’t consider myself a zealot. I’ll gladly advise you to buy a Windows PC if you’ll keep paying me over and over and over to clean your system. It’s not MY fault you’re unaware of FREE a/v software for Windows…
@SydneyStephen
Just read your earlier post. So here’s my story:
I’ve been a MacUser since 1984 when Apple released the Macintosh and have stayed with it since. In 1996/7, I was asked to lead a project team tasked with taking a large consulting firm (over 1,300 staff) off the Mac (System 7) and old peecees (running a number of versions of DOS as well as Windows 2 & 3) onto new peecees running WinDOS 95. At the same time, ‘wire’ this firm up so everyone got email, access to servers, new printers, remote dial-in access, SecureIDs and many other things. And to also ensure everyone was trained to use their new kit for client work…
As a consultant (at work) I’d use a Toshiba Satellite Pro with Windows 95 that was later replaced with an ultra thin Compaq M300. While at home I had an old Power Macintosh 6100/60 (with DOS card which I never used) as well as a PowerBook 170 and a 165c.
I could have switched to peecees but the cost trade-off was quite simply down to one thing: I knew my way round almost all aspects of Systems 7 & 8 even hacking it a bit with ResEdit. I could support myself very well on any Mac. I just could not handle the Blue Screen of Death that I had to contend with on an almost daily basis at work on those peecees. In other words, while I had ready access to an IT Department to sort out the Blue Screens at work, I did not have that luxury at home. So it was a no-brainer: stick with the whole widget or buy into the fragmented world of Microsoft and the PC makers then pay for it through increased support costs which is really just a cleverly cloaked form of ‘bait and switch’ except it is legal since it’s a tactic deployed by an entire industry built around Microsoft.
I thought the move to Mac OSX would have caused me further problems but it’s been a dream. I have lost just two and a half working days since moving to Mac OSX back in 2002. Half a day due to the ‘little black wire’ problem in an iBook I had and the rest in dealing with an ‘extant overlap’ problem that I had to eventually overcome by erasing and reinstalling Mac OSX. In all this, no data was ever lost. Macs just work. Plug an iPod in and it just shows up then kicks up iTunes. Plug in a printer and it works too, as does a digital camera, PalmPilot, data projector, external hard drive. Without any fuss in most cases.
I have my own consulting firm now and remain Mac based by choice. My clients are Windows based but they all assume we’re on that platform until the first time they notice the glowing Apple logo on my MacBook Pro during a presentation… that glowing logo in itself was a really neat bit of innovation on the part of Apple and would not have worked had they retained the old rainbow style logo. The latest variant on that being the way they dropped the word ‘computer’ from the name of the company.
So does all this make me a ‘fanboy’, ‘zealot’, ‘loyalists’ or even a cool-aid addict? Have I been ‘warped by the Reality Distortion Field that Steve Jobs so successfully wraps every new product in?’ Nope. I am quite simply a very satisfied customer who appreciates Apple’s ‘attention to detail in every facet of every product it produces’. Yes, I’ll even go so far as to say a good word about the 2100, the last of the Newtons produced as it had actually come together as a very usable PDA (I’ve got really scruffy hand-writing thanks to over two decades of using computer keyboards) and it went on to spawn a new genre (I understand Jonathan Ive CBE, was involved in the industrial design…) I reckon the Newton may even have ultimately evolved into an iPhone had it survived Steve’s axe which he had to swing given Apple’s financial state and mediocre strategy positioning at the time.
As I said earlier, Apple has shifted the basis of competition well beyond its competitors to the point where it can now set the tune leaving others to merely mimic in a half-baked clumsy manner. Afterall, the originator of an idea being more passionate about it will always render a better result than one who stole it and tried to copy.
Missing ingredient: the threat of marginalization in the past.
Nothing like a threat to rally the tribe and get the testosterone flowing. But yes, we have satisfaction to protect.
I keep on thinking about Steve’s keynote speech where he talks about the research that they did about mobile phones. What do his potential customers really want and need in a mobile phone? What is it that the present phone manufacturers are doing wrong with their phones? What features would you like, and not like?
Then you get your designers and engineers to come up with some solutions using the latest technology that is out there. You show the results to your research groups and see how they react, back to the drawing board, tweak it a little bit more, until you get it right.
Then you announce it with all sorts of fanfare, being sure to give people a little time to get out of their old mobile phone contracts. This taking care of your customers is what we Mac Heads really love about Apple. It’s as simple as that.
@Wiseguy,
Blu-Ray is not kicking anything. The best selling blu-ray movie has only sold 800,000 copies. The iTunes Pre-Order of ‘Cars’ sold more than that in a week.
On top of that, the number 10 best selling Blu-Ray of all time has only sold <900 copies. Really more people live in my apartment complex than bought that movie.
check out the Consumerist, http://consumerist.com/consumer/format-war/format-war-top-10-selling-blu+ray-disc-sells-880-copies-250728.php, for a more detailed look.
A mac fanboy writing about mac fanboys and all the mac fanboys love it.
Low customer service issues help the bottom line. Customer service is the most expensive part of the software/computer business.
This shows that Apple is being smart and putting the majority of the work into the design of their products and not relying on post-purchase product support.
Just my $0.02
Awww. Ya big lug.
Apple’s secret ingredient?
A mind-altering substance embedded in the product cases. Worked on me.
Just thank everything holy that it’s not the secret Jack Sauce from Jack In The Box. The world’s first porno burger franchise.
Thanks guys for the great stories. The Mac user base is expanding quite rapidly now and the Apple history is diluted by those, like me, who joined later and don’t know the history. And how quickly we forget the NT blue screen of death…
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Sydney Stephen;
Thanks for the walk down memory lane!
Apple Rocks!
MW: show, as in “Let the show begin!”
well written article
“Apple’s secret ingredient? A large group of very satisfied customers”
Too bad he goes wrong with his title already. The group isn’t ‘large’. A ‘large’ group would be users of Windows and/or Dell PCs.
In realistic terms Apple users are a fringe group. Some of whom shout very very loud so that the group can be heard.
Don’t count iPod users as Apple-users by the way. 90% (possibly more) of all people who own an iPod own a Windows pc, too…
@Lies
Windows Troll! Windows Troll!
Apple customers include all customers of Apple.
If they own an iPod they are an Apple customer – and undoubtedly a very happy one.
How many million ipods have Apple shipped now?
That is a LARGE group of customers.
And I bet this LARGE group of happy Apple customers aren’t nearly so happy with Microsoft or Dell…
Too bad that this LARGE group of customers didn’t know how great Apple were before they bought a Windows PC…
But I bet a LARGE chunk of them don’t make that mistake the next time around….
Go throw a chair…