The Apple falls far from the tree

Stop comparing yourself to Apple…

Dear Customer Experience team,

I know, I know. It’s tempting. All the business speakers do it. Authors and bloggers everywhere do it. Your marketing team does it. Your sales org does. As do your customer support crew. Everyone does it. So naturally, you are inclined to do it also. But maybe it’s time to stop. Maybe it’s time to look for something more… um… relevant?

Maybe, it is about time to stop comparing yourself to Apple in everything you do. You are not Apple. You are the customer champion. You are supposed to represent the voice of the customer. YOUR customer. So stop trying to measure up to Apple. Stop citing Apple in all of your examples about a great, customer-centric company. No doubt they are customer-centric. But so what? Unless you are Google, Microsoft, or one of a handful of other companies, Apple is not the right comparison to judge yourself against. Relevant or not, somehow Apple has become the standard bearer for the entire business world. Even more baffling, Customer Experience (CX) teams love to collect customer loyalty data in the form of NPS (or CLI) and then promptly judge themselves against Apple[1]. It happens repeatedly, at conferences and in executive boardrooms in industries as diverse as banking to utilities to airplane widgets. Unfortunately, this is the wrong comparison.

Forgive the bad pun, but you are really comparing apples to oranges. It should seem rather odd that an executive at a shoe company would actually attempt to judge a NPS score of 53 by comparing it to Apple’s NPS of 79. “Well, we did OK, but Apple…. Just look at Apple! Why can’t we be more like them?” they inquire. “Quick, I want a 73-slide presentation on how we can be more like Apple! And I want it yesterday!” they shout. Too bad they asked the wrong question. For some perspective on the absurdity of this, imagine trying to evaluate the performance of the men’s rugby team by judging it against the women’s diving team. How about judging the men’s rugby team in the context of the performance of other rugby teams? Similarly, in your specific field of business, evaluate yourself according to relevant metrics. Seems logical, no? What is the mean NPS of your competitors? What is the best-in-class score? What are the NPS trends in your field? If you are an airline, judge against Southwest. Fast Food? Look to Starbucks. Banking? Keep an eye on those pesky credit unions with their off-the-chart NPS scores. ISPs? Well heck, let’s just face the fact that there are no good ISPs in America. What’s that you say? Your industry is so niche that you have no one to compare against? I’ve personally struggled with this one in the past as well. In the absence of externally available NPS data in your field, you can glean some insight by asking your customers about their perceptions of competitors. It’s not perfect, and there is an inherent bias. But it is still more accurate than comparing against Apple.

Apple is a great company and they do a lot of things very well. Their customers love them. But that doesn’t mean that you should try to measure against them. This is one instance where the Apple should fall far from the tree.

Hi there!

I’m Abdul. My heart belongs to my family, but my opinions are mine alone.

For more uninformed conjecture follow me on Medium or on Twitter at @CaliAbdul.

Cheers!

[1] NPS — Net Promoter Score; CLI — Customer Loyalty Index