Apple vs. Toyota: Post-sale Experience

Apple’s “wel­come to your iPhone” email today reminded me that this com­pany is a bril­liant mar­ket­ing engine, not just a ground-breaking adver­tiser or devel­oper of cool prod­ucts. They do the mar­ket­ing basics really, really well.

By con­trast our new rela­tion­ship with Toy­ota, as Prius own­ers, reveals to us Toyota’s lack of atten­tion to expe­ri­ence design when it comes to brand mar­ket­ing. We like the car; I’m not sure how we feel about the brand — if we think of it at all.

Apple

As shown here, Apple’s wel­come email pro­vides links to tuto­r­ial demos and top­i­cal how-to instruc­tions, intro­duces you to the App Store, and offers a free work­shop in the near­est Apple Retail Store. This is a great exam­ple of post-sale mar­ket­ing and expe­ri­ence design, aimed to increase your abil­ity to get value out of the prod­uct, drive adop­tion of new fea­tures and expose hid­den ben­e­fits. Their goal: nudg­ing you on the path toward becom­ing an Apple brand evan­ge­list. Mar­ket­ing Basics 101, yes, but how many com­pa­nies do this at all, let alone exe­cute it so well?

Part of what makes Apple’s wel­come email such a bril­liant mar­ket­ing tac­tic is its tone and edi­to­r­ial empha­sis: the clear focus on mak­ing you as a new user more pro­duc­tive with your iPhone. It sub­tly rein­forces your sense of hav­ing made a smart brand decision.

Apple con­veys enthu­si­asm about help­ing you make the most of your new iPhone 3GS very effec­tively. The col­ors are bright and opti­mistic; there are mul­ti­ple links to use­ful con­tent for the new user.

Because it’s con­sis­tent with their brand, the emo­tional tone in this com­mu­ni­ca­tion feels authentic.

Toy­ota

In con­trast my husband’s recent direct mail from his Toy­ota dealer is tra­di­tional and pro­saic. The design is unin­spired; the copy­writ­ing quite pedes­trian. The over­all tone is very seller-centric. There’s noth­ing about it that feels per­sonal, other than the name and address of the car buyer.

The edi­to­r­ial empha­sis is on sell­ing more stuff, rather than help­ing the new car owner get more value out of your recent pur­chase (or over­come poten­tial buyer’s remorse). The mailer show­cases addi­tional things the dealer wants to sell. The front of the direct mail piece focuses on “spe­cial offers.” The back, which you may over­look while toss­ing the piece into the recy­cle bin, promises “Our com­mit­ment to you has just begun.”

Unlike the Apple wel­come piece, you don’t feel that Toy­ota or the local dealer is think­ing about any form of rela­tion­ship other than the tra­di­tional seller-centric style of connection.

As a result I’m sure my hus­band doesn’t feel as good about his post-purchase brand touch­point as I feel about mine from Apple – and the price dis­par­ity between a Prius and an iPhone is enor­mous. For­tu­nately for Toy­ota, my hus­band likes his first-ever Prius and is not suf­fer­ing buyer’s remorse. If he were, this piece would not have helped in any way.

For Toy­ota this is a missed oppor­tu­nity, espe­cially because the car’s user inter­face (dri­ver cock­pit and trans­mis­sion con­trols) is quite dif­fer­ent from a tra­di­tional car. It takes time to learn how to get the most out of the Prius’ UI, so this would be a good moment to edu­cate the cus­tomer on those dif­fer­ences and why they make sense.

Expe­ri­ence design­ers, take note. Toy­ota could use your help.

Tagged as: creating brand advocates, experience design, post-sale marketing

Revised on September 18, 2009