Apple Customer Service Methodology for Iphones

¶ … Customer Service: Apple iPhone-4

The chosen population would be a cross sampling of customers who use Apple iPhones 4. They must represent a broad spectrum of ethnicities, both genders, a cross sampling of ages between 16 and 80, include people with disabilities, and transverse professions and socio-economic backgrounds. The other inclusion features are that they speak and understand English and are of average cognitive intelligence as well as that they have used Apple iPhone 4 for, at least, 3 years.

I would hire 2 assistants who would be distributed amongst each and every Apple outlet, as well as primary stores that distribute Apple iPhone products. These recruiters would ask customers whether they use Apple iPhone 4 and, if so, whether they would agree to participate in a survey on customer satisfaction. Participants will be offered a small monetary incentive.

I may use computer-assisted telephone interviewing. This is where I am linked to a computer, which cues the questions, to be asked and allows the answer to be directly inputted. I will stretch the telephone interviewing over the duration of a week and conduct it for no longer than 15 minutes. I may choose to do it over the weekend when the response (always a problem with telephone interviewing) may be less hurried and more thoughtful. I will decode the survey by using quantitative content analysis where the items are translated into digits and these then entered into SPSS for statistic interoperation and analysis.

The survey

In order to encourage people to answer, question will be minimal. I will use a Likert scale with some questions being open-ended and others being closed.

1. How content have you been with your iPhone 4 purchase (rate amongst a scale of 1-5 with 1 representing very much and 5= not at all.)?

2. Rate you satisfaction with Apple's customer service to your response with questions regarding your iPhone

3. Are you satisfied with the quality of the customer service?

4. If not, what can be improved?

5. If you were director of the customer service for Apple iPhone-4, how would you improve their service?

I would reinforce the telephone survey with the use of a focus group. A systematic review of recent focus groups research shows that an average of 9 participants is conventional (too large makes for distorted and unclear outcome as well as the danger of groupthink. It may also make it large to handle. The focus group will last for 1.5 hours. Participants will have the same characteristics as above with care taken to ensure that socio-economic variables, age, gender, consumer patterns and culture are diversified. Consent will be solicited beforehand. (Breakwell, 2007).