I am always surprised that some brands are still alive and strong despite the zero customer communication that seems to be their rule of thumb . A great example of organizations that fail to interact with their customers are telecommunications companies. They are first plagued by their sheer size. Then comes a network of mobile resellers that just want to do the sale (the likes of Carphone Warehouse who represent every single mobile operator in the country), call centres that place you on hold for 40 minutes only to put you through an agent whose British northern accent is so thick you wonder if you haven’t dialled Reykjavik instead (Sky TV), and the only interaction you seem to have with them is in a shopping centre when a nineteen-year-old tries to flog you HDTV.  So how come these companies are still around and making profits? My view is that they are still alive not because they are good, but thanks to their position of monopoly and their aged brand presence (soon to become aging brand presence if they’re not more careful).

In the case of telcos, Sky and BT have been sharing most of the UK market between themselves for a while. However they are losing some of these shares to other, cooler, more engaging brands who try not as hard to sell all their products to everyone at the same time. They instead seem to try to sell the right products to the right people. Think O2 and Virgin. O2 brought the iPhone to the UK (associating themselves with the Apple brand at the same time) and they have been showing us some pretty good time at the O2 Arenas all around Europe, even giving their customers privileged access to concert tickets. It is after all at the O2 Arena in London that Prince established residency for 21 consecutive sold-out nights. Virgin, well, need I say more on a brand whose vision is to take down monopolies and who takes tourists into orbit?!! Clearly we see that companies who truly engage with their customers win market shares while the dinosaurs eventually plateau, or decline.

The bottom line is to talk to your customers, acknowledge their existence and recognise the fact that if your organisation is still around it is thanks to them. By speaking to your customers they will respond, and if you can listen to them just a bit, then you will be able to feed back products and services that they will want and will buy from you. As technologies have gone beyond entering our houses and now live in our pockets, do Tweet, do Blog, do Podcast. Simply interact with your customers at their level and never ever ignore them or underestimate their intelligence and the ultimate power of referral. In return, your customers  will reward you with the most prized success any organization can hope for: their long-term loyalty.

Transports For London decided to stick to their old fashioned written and verbal platform announcements, however their website is regularly updated with live travel news. However having updates posted on a website does lack instantaneity, much needed when one is standing on a platform wondering whether one’s train will be on time at a connection for later in the journey. Unfortunately for them, TFL being, well, TFL, they have been beaten to it and instant Tube updates are now available via Twitter thanks to a thoughtful man called Simon Whitaker who has found a way to post automated London Tube Twitter updates sourced directly from the BBC (@tubeupdates). To this date this Twitter feed only has 830 followers, which is surprising considering that there are 3 or 4 million users of the London Underground every day (this alone is a good reason to re-tweet this blog post). I remember being on a bus past Green Park station and reading one the Tube updates saying that there were delays due to fire at Green Park station. At this very moment I was seeing firemen making their way into the station. Not bad!

Which brings me to the use of Twitter that some savvy organizations use to communicate with their customers. So far we’ve seen Twitter being used for commercial purposes (vouchers and specials from Pizza Hut or Starbucks), but last week winter snowfalls highlighted in my house the very useful way Easyjet are using Twitter.

Easyjet managed their flight updates very well through the use of 2 web channels. Their website and Twitter. The website displayed a list of flights that were being cancelled for the day and the following one. It also clearly stated at the top when the list had been updated. Sometimes small details make a difference, and the simple fact that the “last update” info was displayed re-assured me, as a customer. It demonstrated to me that EasyJet actually cared about me, which is rare (as previously demonstrated in an earlier post). But to top it up, they advertised, on their website, a Twitter feed where a real human being was posting updates and personally responding to requests from customers. A real human being, in real time was posting updates and links to information areas on the Easyjet website! Simple, cheap and efficient way, in line with EasyJet’s brand image. As a result they have boosted my confidence in their brand and I am now even more likely to fly with them.

They showed that they cared and in my world empathy goes a long way, especially when the elements are against you.

Jokes apart, I do love a Mac, for the simple reason that they give me an uncomparable experience whenever I use one of their products. Let’s face it, I use the same browser on my Mac at home as I do on my PC at work, the same Microsoft word processor (yes, Microsoft, I am not that sad), the same spreadsheets; you get the point. What matters to me is the way I use it, how it makes ME feel when I sit in front of a beautiful piece of technology that looks good, works well, is fast and, let’s be honest, that I worked hard to acquire. Would you feel the same at the wheel of a Lexus as you would driving a Ford? And have you wondered why Apple have sold 40 million iPhones when everyone initially claimed that the price point was way to high? Or why everyone is now trying to copy the iPhone and why the iPod is so popular? The music on an iPod doesn’t sound better than on a much cheaper MP3 player. Your phone conversations are not any clearer on an iPhone, and iPhones don’t even work well in the cold and are often glitchy. Still, most people have rushed for them, just like most people queue at Starbucks. The reason is simple and it comes down to 2 basic things: the experience the brand gives you and how the brand makes you feel.

But this post is about what’s coming on 26th January 2010.

If Apple are releasing a product, and given the quality of everything they have released in the past 4-5 years (apart from the Apple TV, a blatant flop), Apple have more than proven their market leading position in terms of innovation. HP and Microsoft may have announced yesterday a couple of slates some three weeks before Apple’s expected official announcement, but where is the user experience? Users do not need just a flat laptop, they need something better than a laptop. Which is why I think that the Apple Slate or the iTablet or whatever it will be called will eventually replace the notebook and the laptop for those who can afford it. And before long expect the Apple Tablet to be copied, and we will see what we have seen with the iPhone. Cheaper clones galore, including better, more expensive ones (think HTC smartphones).

We all need a portable device with an intuitive OS that works with portability. The innovations that Apple have already made with the trackpads show very well that portability is a growing part of OS and OS X in particular. And I don’t see much of it with Windows 7, I’m afraid.

Slates will end up replacing laptops, as long as they are as powerful as their folding, heavier, bulkier counterparts. The only unknown to this date resides in typing, which can easily be solved with the adjunction of a keyboard (certainly not ideal, but until we come up with holographic keyboards, there’ll have to be a compromise somewhere). Then again don’t we all go through the painful process of typing urls on iPhones and Blackberries? At the end of the day, it comes down to what you use your laptop for most of the time. A slate would be perfect for travellers as it’s light and flat, with hopefully a beautiful display for watching videos on a plane, in a car on on a train. And should you want to type an essay on it, you could easily hook up a bluetooth keyboard and prop the slate upright (imagine a slate with a stand at the back to prop it up and you have the perfect device). Good bye Filofax, good-bye notebook, the laptop and the books can stay home on my holidays and I can now read the news and browse the internet comfortably while I have my coffee in the morning. No more sore eyes and painful neck trying to do that on a tiny screen.

So let’s see what Apple comes up with, but I am expecting an engaging and innovating user experience combined with a beautiful piece of technology that everyone will want to own, and that everyone will want to copy. Just like the iPod and the iPhone.