What You Could Learn From Amazon MZ (5/26/15)
Machine Zone if you intend to maintain any form of relevance over the long haul you may want to look at how some of your peers in the industry have decided to focus on their customers, and the level of service they provide them.
For the purpose of today’s lesson MZ we are going to look at two technology based companies. The first is Amazon. Now, I don’t particularly love Amazon’s business model because it literally puts their competition out of business. No mom and pop shop can compete with the low cost, selection and efficiency that Amazon operates with. Amazon is Wal-Mart on steroids. Amazon is only an estimated $157 billion company that has been around for give or take 21 years that has annual sales of around $74 billion.
The other company we are going to look at is Apple. Apple has a slightly different model than Amazon in the sense that they are a niche company that has a much more focused target customer than Amazon. Apple doesn’t try to be the cheapest product under the sun, they made their mark by being innovative and a trend setter. From what I can see that has worked for them. I mean Apple was only valued at a meager $483 billion. That’s an old number reported by Forbes; I have seen reports that Apple exceeds $700 billion. Now whether or not they can maintain their reputation as an industry leader, or Apple’s dominance slowly erodes without its visionary leader Steve Jobs remains to be seen. However, it’s safe to say that they will be around for at least a few years when they have annual sales of about $174 billion.
MZ do you know what both of these companies have in common other than being two of your largest points of sale? They both love their customers. They actually do everything they can to make sure their customers have the best experience possible. This may only be rumor, but I heard that Amazon was considering removing Game of War: Fire Age from its store shelves. Considering the number of unaddressed flaws in your product, and the countless customer complaints I couldn’t blame them.
MZ you haven’t been kicked to the curb yet, but I would say the reason you haven’t is a direct result of the fact that you still appear relevant as a product to companies like Amazon and Apple. Although it will be interesting how long you appear relevant if you are experiencing mass defections of people like Grog, Jules, Ryan and Ion. Mind you those are only partial names of players in kingdom #194, more commonly known as Lynx, but you would be wise to take note of them. They are players that have either sold their accounts, are in the process of selling them, or have flat out abandoned them. Those four accounts combined are probably worth in excess of $32,000. Perhaps you’ll have no problem finding people to replace them, but why replace them if you could have kept them as customers by listening to and following through with some customer requests. Who knows?!?! Maybe Machine Zone wants to be a one hit wonder that cashes in and dwindles off into irrelevance. If that’s the case your business model is working perfectly. If not you might want to listen to, and start showing your customers you actually value them.
