I Phone Home...

When I'm off the map.

Image c/o Businessweek.

The launch of any new Apple device is rabidly anticipated and treated with a level of fanfare that’s slightly puzzling to those of us who haven’t yet drunk of the Apple-flavored Kool Aid. The late September release of the iPhone 5 was no different.

However, one particular difference became evident within days as not-so-happy iPhone 5 owners began reporting surprising problems with the newly created Apple Maps, which was rolled out with the iPhone 5 as a competitor to the industry-leading Google mapping program. The specifics of the Apple Maps issues, which include incomplete and inaccurate road and route data, and even typos in place names, speak of an unready product rushed into service. Clearly not what we’d expect from history’s most successful tech company.

But Apple’s real problem is still developing: their gaffe has turned their newest product into a late-night punchline. (Example: A guy with an iPhone 5 walks into a bar. Or a church. Maybe it was the Pacific Ocean.)

Apple CEO Tim Cook has issued an apology, and fixes are reportedly being expedited. Given the still-strong sales of the iPhone 5, and Apple’s resiliently loyal fanbase, it’s likely the company won’t suffer too much for their mistake.

But that shouldn’t excuse them for the worst kind of PR disaster: the self-inflicted kind. This one began with the widely panned decision, made back in the summer, to ditch Google Maps — reportedly in retaliation for Google’s entering the mobile-hardware arena. The inside story remains to be written, but it sure seems like Apple’s habit of cutthroat competition resulted in the too-soon release of an inferior product, all at their customers’ expense.

The bottom line is that Apple’s reputation, like every company’s, is their most important nontangible asset. No company can afford to risk it needlessly. Apple will undoubtedly survive the iPhone 5 maps fiasco. But how well will they fare the next time hubris lays them low?

Do they really want to find out?

The C4:

1. The iPhone 5 was released on September 21, 2012. Like most Apple releases, this one was treated as one of the most momentous tech happenings of the year.
2. The story quickly shifted, though, as users reported problems with the on-board Apple Maps program, which seemed to make it as useful for navigation as a demagnetized compass. Even though sales of the device are strong, the launch has turned into a PR fiasco, necessitating software fixes and a CEO apology.
3. It never should have happened. The whole sorry episode seems to be the result of Pyrrhic competition between Apple and Google, and of the unacceptable practice of rushing unready products to market.
4. In the long run, despite a hit to their reputation, Apple probably won’t suffer inordinately for their mistake. But reputation is finite. One hopes Apple has learned something from this, lest their reputation comes to be defined by it.

Are You Complaining About The Complainers?

Be careful when responding to online reviews.

How do you deal with an unhappy customer? Unfortunately there’s no one right answer for that. Factors like your business model, their specific complaint, even the current economic climate all go into determining how you can best put the gruntle back into the disgruntled.

But there are plenty of wrong ways to do it, and plenty of object lessons in how not to behave.

Not surprisingly, these lessons are all Internet-related. There’s danger inherent in the Internet, in that illusory degree of separation and in the way your impulsive typing-and-clicking can spread ‘round the world, and never be taken back.

Customers complain online. We have to accept that fact. Services like Yelp and Epinions make it as easy as can be for consumers to log their good and bad buying experiences. Alas, it’s been proven again and again they’re far more likely to talk about the bad than the good. And as bad as that might seem, it’s often the merchants’ reactions that really do the damage. Consider the evidence:

A one-star Yelp review for a Chicago-based wine-paring class resulted in dueling blog insults, and finally a half-million dollar defamation suit against an internationally renowned oenologist. In an email he accused his customer of acting like a child, but the resulting publicity hurt only him.

In Canada, a restaurateur responded to negative reviews by creating a fake sex site profile for the reviewer. She’s just been convicted of two counts of defamatory libel and will be sentenced later this year.

And perhaps the worst: the owner of an online eyeglass retailer has just been sentenced to four years in prison for stalking, harassing and intimidating critics. He would routinely email and even telephone reviewers, threatening them with his knowledge of their personal information such as home addresses. Amazingly, he was apparently courting bad feedback, under the theory that any online mention at all result in higher search-engine rankings.

How shortsighted. In business, your only real currency is your reputation. Your reputation utterly depends on how you deal with the most challenging situations. Can you win back every unhappy customer? Probably not, but you can certainly extend the effort to try to make things right. In the most extreme cases you can just ignore them. But engaging in a very public war of words (or worse)? That’s something you can’t win, and can never undo.

The C4:

1. Try though you might, you can’t make every customer happy. Unhappy customers complain, and in our digital age there’s a very good chance they’ll complain online. Do yourself a favor and accept that fact.
2. Resist the urge to engage. Yes, it burns inside to see your business publicly disparaged, especially if you don’t agree with the reviewer’s version of facts. But do you want to play “he said/she said” with the whole world watching?
3. Instead, consider your alternatives. Can you turn a negative into a positive? Can you swallow your pride, say Mea Culpa, and make some kind of public effort at reconciliation? It might not feel good, but it’ll look good.
4. Failing that, just walk away. Readers of online reviews are willing to take outlying gripes with a grain of salt. Prove your critic wrong by giving stellar service to everyone else who walks through your door. If you engage and say the wrong thing you’ll be tarnished forever. Treat your reputation as currency, and never risk it on a sucker’s bet.

Be Epic

Traditionally, an “epic” was a long poem that narrated the deeds of heroes, the rise and fall of nations and the meddling of the gods. But in today’s vocabulary, “epic” is an — often intentionally exaggerated — adjective used to say that something is awesome.

When describing a person, you might say, “That guy was the most epic guitarist I’ve ever seen.” For an event or action, a simple “That was epic.”

You get the idea. But how does “epic” work for organizations? It definitely sounds weird when you talk about them like that:

Adobe is the most epic content authoring, customer experience management and online marketing software developer ever!

Yep, that definitely sounds weird — and a wee bit forced.

Making “epic” work for an organization isn’t easy. In the traditional epic, characters, groups and even entire nations went through a lot of hardship, self-discovery, lesson learning and perhaps even sacrifice to get to where they were going. Sound familiar? That’s probably because you experienced those same things at some point in your organization’s history. Any company that’s still operating in this world knows how hard it can be — and what it had to go through to get to where it is today.

That journey — coupled with your history and culture — makes up your unique story. It’s the tale of how you came to be and the adventures you’ve been on since the beginning. It’s the saga of your relationships with customers and the chronicle of your battles with competitors.

Unfortunately, most organizations aren’t on the same page when it comes to understanding and telling their unique story. Our role is to discover it, dust it off, polish it, package it and tell it in its most favorable light and most memorable way to those who will benefit from hearing it.

And with our team by your side every step of the way, you’ll discover how to make that story epic.