Sharon Driscoll
I think all of us canalways up our game, but I think Apple at this juncture has done a superb job,but I don’t think it starts at the marketing campaign. I think it’s the fundamental understanding ofwhat they bring to market and for whom they deliver to or talk with and havethem in mind as they’re innovating.
Then they take agreat conversation and bring it forward in a way that is palatable to the exacttarget that they’re going after. It’swhat all of us achieve and all of us hope to do and all of us put down on eachpiece of paper every day, but to really achieve that you have to take time tolive in those customer shoes and really understand what makes them happy. Not what makes them tick. Not what makes them buy, but what makes themhappy. Delighted.
When you do that Ithink then you start to have this massive following of your supporters. I think Apple’s done a masterful job ofconstantly keeping their supporters happy and delighted with what they do.
We benchmark them,but I also benchmark them personally because I think it’s a great, as acustomer of theirs, as a consumer of theirs, I see how they interact with meand I take that learning and bring it back to the business to business worldbecause I think everybody at their core is a consumer and they all wanna betreated specially and in a special way and I think Apple does that beautifullywith their customers.
This whole notion ofone to one selling. The genius bar. If you look at the genius bar and you saygee, here are your kinds of likes and dislikes and so we’ve got somesuggestions to you, but it’s all very collaborative. It’s never a direct sell and a push.
That’s the kind ofthing that we brought back and said, ‘Ya’ know, customers we were just thinkingabout it, about your industry, about some things that are happening in themarketplace, about the world and the way it’s changing.’
Those are the kindsof conversations we’re now having with our customers and how they ultimatelycan be smarter about the way they look at things and about the way they framethings. Is that solely as a result oflooking at Apple? No, but it’s certainlyone place where we see it taking place in the consumer world that we’ve kind ofused that in the business world.