Have you ever wondered why you tend to forgive more when it comes to a brand you like? Very often when IE crashes, I’ll be angry at it and blaming Microsoft for releasing a stupid crappy browser and refusing to making it up to date, while on the other hand, when Firefox crashes I tend to be more forgiving and blame it on the workload or the application that’s trying to load. It’s weird we make choices when it comes to brands and there always seems to be a good-vs.-bad brand situation. Well… there’s been some typing and publishing that has been done about it, and it’s pretty worth reading. It’s called : having a passion for a brand.
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Having passionate users is almost like a get-out-of-jail-free card.
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Some sliced quotes from a good article you should eventually read entirely :
[...] "there’s no getting around it–we all have double standards. We are all cutting one side some slack while holding the other to our ruthless, concrete expectations. And of course we will all screw up. We aren’t perfect. Neither is our software, our hardware, our service, our support, our employees, our policies, our products and services and ideas. But that’s the beauty of passion–if you can inspire it, by helping your user kick ass–they WILL cut you some slack. They’ll forgive you when you screw up."
And it’s true. If your brand has the right image and influence, you can almost do anything, the customers will still like you and minimize the damage or malfunctions. The position of the underdog can be mildly abused to escape from furious customers who demand refunds or complain about certain shortcomings of a certain product. Here’s an example in which ‘true, die hard fans’ are being separated from ‘new rookie users’:
"True Apple fans know that the Nano screen only appears to have a problem with scratches because:
a) The screen scratches… DUH! The new users are just too stupid to take proper
care of it.and b) The normal to-be-expected scratches are simply more noticeable now because of the increased screen resolution. The perceived “scratch problem” is actually an artifact of the Nano’s superiority. A feature, not a bug."
However, we must keep in mind that there has been a lot of criticism on this new Nano, mostly by new adopters, and Apple has been forced to re-release its player with a protective case. The true fans of almost any brand are a target group that can’t be ignored, but most of the time they’re still the minority of users. A product or brand that wants to grow needs to take notice of any complaints because ‘new users’ are at the source of any growing market share.
"And that’s another question to ponder… why are we so willing to diss Microsoft yet give Apple a break for some of the same things? More importantly, what–if anything–could Microsoft do to turn that around?"
We need to take a step back sometimes, instead of choosing a favorite. If it’s broken or malfunctioning, something needs to be done. Even if it’s a company or brand we like a lot. But that is about the hardest thing to ask from any loyal consumer.
Read : ‘Passion is blind’ by Kathy Sierra – hat tip : [Casual Jim]