Consumer Research And Marketing Strategies Of Apple

This assignment highlights about how consumer research plays an important role for the company to be successful by knowing their weak points and to improve them before any down fall hit them. The research taken place in the form of surveys where the customer is asked to rate and comment on the product or service opt by them. The topic consumer research is related to the field of public relations. It is the way to find out that how well the product of the company is doing in the market in different aspects. In this realistic world every company aims to be the first preference of the customer. For that they upgrade their ideas, models, techniques etc. The relationship among the consumers and their choices are being measured by degree of satisfaction consumer gets. The higher level of satisfaction shows the high level of gains and benefits to the company.

In consumer research it is said that more positive relationship with the customer will lead to the higher sales. Higher sales will help the company to earn more and that will affect the production line. When a company launches its new good or service they contact the customer for their point of view on the product or service purchased. The feedback from the consumers contains more information about the product as it is being used by them. Surveys, Feedback, Mails and contacting the customer directly are the different ways to get to known what customer wants and how much satisfied he/she is. Nowadays every company has started mailing and calling the customers to rate the service provided. The customer is said to be the king of any business as they’re the one who is going to buy goods or services provided by the company. And it is directly related to the number of sales made by the company by making their customers happy and satisfied. Special treatments like promotional mail, discounted coupons, offers etc. encourage the customers to have a look at them and their feedbacks are valued.

Hence, we can say that knowing our weakness isn’t bad for the company because they can be the reason why company is not able to obtain their aim. In the business the customer is always right and his comments or complains should be taken seriously. The correct measures can be taken to improve the unwanted obstacle standing between the company and its success. Overcoming through all the negative points can lead to the success, growth and survival of the company for the long run in the market.

Apple company

Best Company known for its innovative marketing strategies is Apple. Apple company is a multinational company that makes hardware, software and mobile devices like music players. Apple was founded by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne in April 1976 to develop and sell Wozniak's Apple I personal computer. The hardware is known as macintosh which was one of the first computers in which the people could use a mouse for pointing on a screen which had icons, software is known as MacOS is the name of an operating system for computers, iOS is an operating system for mobile devices such as iPhone, iPod iPad etc., watchOS is an operating software for Apple watches and tvOS is a software for digital tv media player. These all products are the base on which the company is standing high in the market and known for the best company for its innovation marketing strategies.

This company started its career by stepping in the production line of computers and Apple changed its name after launching its original iPhone this was due to the reason that the company not only produces computers but also other electronic devices. The company earn about $53.5 Billion quarterly and every year there is an increase by 40%. The company is now on the highest peak. Till date apple has launched number of iPads, iPhones, MacBooks and iPods. The majority of people have iPhones i.e 700 Billion and 200 Billion people have second hand iPhones. The most popular devices in each category is iPhone is iPhone 6s, iPad is iPadPro, iPods were discontinued in 2017. In every business run there are many ups and downs but the most important thing is that how well a company can handle all those problems. Recently Apple losses over 60$ Billion sharp downfall this was analysed that the reason behind was Weak demand from the mobile sector: Apple shares fell nearly seven percent on 19 April and 20 April over reports of a sharper slowdown in smartphone sales in 2018.

This resulted in:

• Lower prices mean lower profit: The iPhones were sold at a lesser price as compared to the original price on which they were launched. For the sake of making a sale the company fall the prices of the products so that customers get attractive.
• The competition gets tougher: The other companies started coping the design of iPhones and selling then at a much lower price. Day by day the competition got tougher.
• Too many changes: As per the demands of the customer the company started making new changes. Maps, operating system and plugs are changed and were launched as soon these things were needed.
• More devices mean more battlefronts: the company started launching new iPhones, iPods, iPads, MacBook, watches and other electronic devices. This all was done with the aim of making new customers and making for sales.
• Lagging behind connected world: Apple company found it difficult to stay connected to the world as it produces only few devices as compared to other brands like Sony, Samsung which have other products like home appliances, washing machines and tv appliance. Every month apple company conducts a research surveys that reveal, country-by-country, what is driving our customers to buy Apple’s iPhone products versus other products such as the Android products that Samsung sells, what features they most use, our customers’ demographics and their level of satisfaction with different aspects of iPhone.
• One chart lists response from customers in seven different countries, asking them why they bought an iPhone after considering an Android device. “Trust Apple Brand” emerged as the first or second most popular reason in most regions, including in the U.S and China where 54% of respondents cited it as a factor.
• Some 67% of Chinese respondents said they bought the iPhone because they liked the physical appearance and design, the highest percentage across the group, which also included Japan, the U.K., France, Germany and South Korea.
• Least important, almost universally, was the ability to easily transfer music and other media across multiple devices.

“Greater availability of apps I am interested in” was a significant factor in South Korea, where 47% cited it as a reason. iPhones and its other products are the main product of apple company which held them up in the market. There are number of products launched successful till date but not all the iPhones were successful. One of the iPhone model which was failed and lead the market to the downfall is iPhone 6 with 22% high level of fail. This iPhone which fail in many countries such as India, Japan, China, United States of America and Canada.

Case 1

In India iPhone6 was launched with a great excitement and customers purchased this product. But after few days they raised their complaints and those complaints were regarding the low battery capacity, slowing down and even some customers complained about the bending of iPhone 6. It left the market like a disaster as the number of complaints raised. The other problem came up with the people who were living in villages and small towns. The iPhones were not accessible to them because apple products were sold online or in big high retail shops which were in big cities. It was difficult for them to reach to the product. After knowing all the reason behind the growth of apple company in India, Apple decided to give the compensation to the customers for battery degradation and other services. There was a program called as the battery replacement program. This secured the image of the company as they were ready to improve their mistakes. Other than this, more stores and dealers were arranged so that the product could reach to the customer who were earlier left behind.

Case 2

Japanese say no to apple, clients in Japan feel that touch screen will have problem using this feature. They believe that iPhone plans are too high as compared to the competitors. Japanese feel lack of features in the phone like digitalised tv viewing phones, emojis and one of the main feature lacking is that most mobile phones used in Japanese market allow their users to use it as Train passes & Debit cards. After getting the knowledge of problems, apple came up with the solution of providing some features known as e-wallets which is a saver way of keeping your boarding passes, cinema tickets, retail coupons in one place. New iPhones solves the other problem of having the feature of recognising face and converting it into emojis.

Case 3

Chinese user complaint about the iPhone face recognising feature which didn’t came up very well as the phone was not able to distinguish among the owner of the phone and other people. It was said that the iPhone was able to get unlocked by a stranger. This problem raised and took the shape of racism. The company took the complaint seriously and exchanged with their old iPhone with the new iPhone. Apple promised to provide a high degree of accuracy for a diverse range of users.

Case 4

In United States and Canada many customers complained and even file a suit against the company. The reason why customers were unhappy with the product was that iPhone suddenly froze up, susceptible to bending and People tend to put them in their pants and the human body does bend. The apple came up with the answer that the only bending could be due to fracture connections within the phone's motherboard, causing it to malfunction. Apple company was asked to claim the issue which is serious enough to demand to pay damages that include compensation for a defective phone. In the end, Apple is one of the greatest marketers of all time, but even it can stumble. Goodwill of the company never fades away because of the hardworking employees and their creative thinking. It is never easy for any company to cop up with the failure but if the company has the courage of changing its failure into a challenge then no one could stop them from being successful.

The benefits of the consumer research to the company are:

• Create an Experience Ecosystem- Apple company has a great focus on the customers. Apple has aggressively expanded the areas where the Apple experience is part of daily life. solving all the complaints is the job of the company. Apple ensures that the universe of Apple-mediated behaviour continually expands.
• Organise Sales and Marketing by Customer, not Product- Apple targets four main B2B customers—education, government, SME, and enterprise. The benefit of this approach is that it ensures the salesperson really understands the customer and can offer solutions from across the Apple portfolio to best meet customer needs.
• Control Pricing- This strategy extends to the microcosm of Apple retailers, dealers, and resellers, where Apple uses “minimum advertised price” to keep prices relatively comparable to its own stores and minimal wholesale discounts to prevent retailers from passing discounts onto consumers.
• Use Customer-based Metrics- feedback is collected and shared with store teams daily, all negative feedback is addressed within 24 hours with a personal call from a store manager.

Apple has never fallen prey to this practice and instead continues to build value from quality rather than from price. Apple is set apart from its competition by its combination of hardware and software, by the content gate-keeper strategy embodied in iTunes. While there are many other reasons in the company’s history for their success in recent years, these are the dominant themes of their astounding success. Companies looking to compete with Apple need to know that it is not impossible, however they will need to pick their battles wisely, innovate on their differentiation, focus heavily on being the best solution in the market for the problems they are trying to solve.