What else can you do to innovate a product such as a tablet? Apple, Microsoft, Dell, Lenovo, Samsung, and many others have done a lot of great things such as hybrids, twists, slates, snap-on keyboards and many other wonderful things.
But leave it to Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon, to bring the tablet device to another level. Amazon announced Mayday, which brings to the front of the tablet screen a customer service representative – live – to help you with a problem or show you a new feature you might not have known about.
So instead of creating an innovative new feature, Amazon has gone another route and offered a brand new customer experience. And, it’s the customer experience that is going to get people to support your product over another.
For example, why do people go to Starbuck’s for overpriced coffee? Sure the coffee’s good, but you can say the same thing for McDonald’s and Tim Horton’s. It’s the experience they provide the customer that keeps people coming back to Starbuck’s.
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This is the concept Bezos and the brain-trust at Amazon is looking to provide with its latest Kindle Fire HDX.
Now I can see this service costing a lot for Amazon, but the company has scale because of all of its other businesses so if there is one company who can pull it off I would bet on Amazon. And, let’s not forget Amazon customer service is very good. I have a personal anecdote to share with you. My wife uses a Kindle e-reader. The product worked well for a while. My wife is a voracious reader so I wasn’t surprised when the Kindle one day just conked out. Probably from exhaustion. My wife called Amazon and she was shipped a brand new Kindle the next day; no questions asked. That’s treating the customer right.
So I like the strategy from Amazon to out-service its competitors. Do what you do best. Amazon knows this and they have finally made it a major part of its go-to-market strategy with the MayDay service.
One quick hit before I go. Waterloo, Ont.-based tech hub Communitech is pleased to appoint Steve McCartney as the vice president of the Startup Services Group. In this role, McCartney is responsible for the growth and development of startup-focused programming for Communitech’s almost 700 startup clients. McCartney was the president and CEO of Atria Networks from 2003 – 2009 and most recently served as the president and CEO of Bering Media.