A bruise or two on Apple’s reputation

This short piece in BusinessWeek is really driving the point home: Apple’s shining reputation for stellar customer service is suffering. I’ve been bitten by the new and poorer support programs, as have others:

By broadening its share of the computer market and diving into whole new businesses, the company has become a case study in the challenges of taking a cherished brand with a devoted (some would say cult) following into the mainstream. “The customer base is now more diverse, including students and mainstream consumers, and it’s harder to satisfy as a whole,” says Lopo L. Rego, a marketing professor at the University of Iowa who studies the impact of customer satisfaction on financial performance.

The article points out parallels to Dell, who suffered a market share fall in 2006 after shoppers complained bitterly of poor customer service years prior. Granted Apple is still offering better service than most, but they are starting to take on the “big company” feel and in so doing distance themselves from loyal customers.

Just today I got a slap in my virtual face after posting a well-thought-out commentary on iWork ‘08 in Apple’s forums. I wasn’t asking for support though, instead I was pointing out what iWork needs in order to become a worthy product in the business environment. It was, all in all, a critique—and Apple promptly deleted it from the forum. In the good old days, someone would have read and hopefully taken my feedback to heart.