Site icon MacDailyNews

Gartenberg: Apple is the new Nordstrom

Apple Online Store“This past week I was at the opening of Apple’s latest store in NYC. It’s a work of art with a forty five foot glass wall, an all glass ceiling and marble walls. Along with that there’s the now iconic glass staircase. In many ways, it’s more a community gathering place for Apple customers and potential customers than it is a retail store,” Michael Gartenberg writes for SlashGear. “The beauty of the stores are effective but that’s not what’s ultimately driving sales. At the end of the day, the physical store is merely the visible manifestation of the Apple customer experience.”

“Consumers don’t really care about things like Snow Leopard, Macintosh, iPods or iPhones. They care about music, web browsing, e-mail and the associated services that go with them. The platform is a means to that end, as is the store. Consumers do care a great deal about the experience they go through in buying these products and they care about the customer service they receive after the purchase,” Gartenberg writes.

“Over the last year I keep hearing more and more anecdotes about Apple’s customer service and particularly the experience at retail. All the stories were tales that bordered on the stuff that urban myths are made of,” Gartenberg writes. “They were repeated over and over to groups of people. They dealt with things ranging from MacBook keyboard problems, iPod failures and customer service during the purchases of back to school systems. In each case Apple did not please these customers, Apple delighted them.”

Gartenberg writes, “Regardless of whether they’re exaggerated over time or not, these stories help further build mindshare today, and mindshare today leads to market share tomorrow.”

Full article, in which Gartenberg calls Apple, the new Nordstrom, here.

Exit mobile version