Apple iLEAVE

Has this ever happened to you - you go to a store to buy a specific product and end up not buying it due to the barrage of questions asked by the store clerk? This was the case with 2oceansvibe blog owner, Seth Rotherham. 

 

The famous blogger entered his local Cape Town iStore to buy an iPod Shuffle. After finally getting the attention of the store clerk, who pulled out an iPod shuffle, Seth was ready to pay and leave. The store clerk, however, insisted (without explaining why) that he needed to take down Seth’s phone number before he could sell him anything. Clearly frustrated by the situation, the 2oceans ‘viber’ gracefully left the iStore to shop at a neighbouring store. He has since written about his experience in a post that has garnered 66 comments. Given that his blog has a readership of 35 000 unique users per month, we can safely assume his message has gotten out there. 

 

So what can be taken from this? Firstly, there are easier ways to get a customer’s details on to the store’s database than asking them a considerable number of questions. Secondly, and more importantly, we should ask if Apple knows about this incident. This is where Online Reputation Management tools would come in. 

 

Top brands like Apple are studied by the harshest of critics - online consumers. And when you step out of line negative mentions of you appear all over the Internet.

 

 

 

The benefits resulting from available ORM tools include; monitoring and tracking what’s being said about your brand. You can therefore envisage how the online information affects your brand, and finally you are able to influence and modify the results by participating in blogs and other social media platforms.  

 

The use of Social Media has equipped consumers with a voice, a platform and the ability to amplify their views. The connected nature of the Internet makes these views easy to share, and the accessibility of Social Media tools makes it easy for other consumers to respond. Whether positive, negative, or slightly off-centre; consumers like Seth are making their views known and Apple should be on top of this to respond accordingly.