CNBC:
Sometimes people write to Apple CEO Tim Cook.
Most don’t get a response.
But they do get passed around the company, and sometimes they inspire real action inside. In particular, they’ve helped guide the company deeper into the health care field.
And not just letters to Tim. There are lots of examples out there of letters that get responses from Craig Federighi, Phil Schiller, Eddy Cue, etc.
Wish the iTunes team took my letters to ‘heart’ like the health team does.
In the past, “No focus groups” was one of Jobs’ mantras. I suspect, divulging/leaking this tidbit is a stealthy way to elicit customer feedback without such groups. (Now, back to my tinfoil hat making.)
This is wonderful. I wrote to Tim Cook once. It was after a series of article came out, raking him and Apple over the coals for something or other. Occasionally, when there’s too much negativity, I will be inspired to write positivities. So I basically sent Tim a “thank you for how you’ve taken up the mantle at apple and here’s all the things I like that you’ve done” sort of thing. I got a very nice, and short, email response thanking me for the positive email.
Over the years I think I’ve sent two letters to Steve Jobs/Tim Cook. (One each, I think.)
The first one was a lament that a shitty game console included breakaway controller connectors but my $4,000 laptop didn’t include breakaway power. A year and a half later Apple shipped MagSafe. (I’m not taking credit. I’m sure I was one of a hundred people who asked them to do something about it.)
The second was that code signing was a fucking nightmare, and was impossible to diagnose what was going wrong when something went wrong. I got bounced around a couple times as a couple executives took swings and diagnosing my problem. I eventually solved it, thanked them, and told them the answer… along with mentioning that getting it working wasn’t really the problem. The real problem was that it happened over and over again. That one took a few years, but Apple did eventually implement a “hands-free mode” for Xcode code signing. (I’m not taking credit for this, either. Same thing — hundreds or thousands of people bitched about the old system.)
Apple doesn’t always move quickly enough or make the move that satisfies everyone, but I’m convinced that they definitely listen.
Edit: Just fired off a third email, this time thanking him for saving me a trip to emergency last week. Thanks to the Apple Watch I became aware of a problem soon enough to talk it through with BC’s non-emergency medical hotline instead of having to go to the hospital. I’m fine now.
This is not unique to Apple. Woe be to the employee that gets the cryptic email that says, “Fix this,” and at the bottom of a thread with a bunch of executives is an email from a customer to the CEO.
https://www. inc .com/bill-murphy-jr/11-times-it-paid-to-complain-directly-to-the-ceo.html
https://www.theguardian .com/money/2016/sep/18/customer-complaint-ceo-better-than-customer-services
This is not unique to Apple. Woe be to the employee that gets the cryptic email that says, “Fix this,” and at the bottom of a thread with a bunch of executives is an email from a customer to the CEO. Sorry for the broken links, but otherwise the post disappears in moderation.
www. inc .com/bill-murphy-jr/11-times-it-paid-to-complain-directly-to-the-ceo.html
www. theguardian .com/money/2016/sep/18/customer-complaint-ceo-better-than-customer-services
Me too, but never heard squat 🙁
Yeah, sent an email directly to John Doerr from Kleiner Perkins, last week, indicating Al Gore’s bio text is messed up on their site. As of now it’s still messed up.
I sent it to Doerr because the site has no general info email that I could find. So, go to the top. I’ll post back if I ever get a reply.
I suspect Doerr will be less responsive. I suspect responsiveness is correlated to how consumer facing the business is.
Hey Tim,
Update your Macs.
Yours sincerely, Mac users.
Indeed he is.