I saw a blog post on Mashable about TapTap wristbands and it amazed me to see how technology improves day by day.

This new launched product allows people to communicate by vibrations that they send to each other via a wristband. Woodenshark, the company which launched TapTap wristband targeted the distanced couples and the price of two wristbands is $130. Customers download an application and register with their e-mails to use the wristbands. When a person taps the wristband, the other feels the exact same vibrations.

Other than other communication tools such as sms, Facebook, Snapchat this new product allows people to communicate by vibrations. I think especially couples are going to love this product because it is a different way to communicate. It is more realistic than texting or video chatting. With this product people are going to be able to feel each other, in addition to see each other of hear each others’ voice on videochat tools.

Technology improves rapidly and some companies know how to take advantage of this change.

Sources:

http://mashable.com/2013/11/17/taptap-wristband-communication-relationships/

Blackberry, which used to be one of the most popular brands in smartphone industry is struggling to keep its sales high. Nowadays many customers are not happy with Blackberry phones. Meanwhile Blackberry’s competitors Apple and Samsung provides many improved technologies to its customers. There is a high entrance level of competitors in smartphone industry. Thus since Blackberry cannot catch its competitors in terms of features and design of its products, it’s losing a significant amount of customers.

In his blog, Hanxuan Wang talks about Blackberry’s current situation in Canada. As one of the biggest partners of Blackberry, Rogers declined to stock its new smartphone model in their stores. Rogers is Canada’s one of the most profitable wireless carriers. Even though Rogers claim that this decision has nothing to do with Blackberry’s current performance, it still proves that Blackberry needs to take more steps for not losing its customers.

I agree with Hanxuan on the point that technology changes really fast and companies need to adapt to these changes in order to maintain their profits. Also it proves that even the biggest companies can fail in a very short period of time.

For Hanxuan Wang’s blog post:

Blackberry’s Fall

Other Sources:

http://www.calgaryherald.com/business/blackberry+struggles+sets+date+latest+device+canada/8992733/story.html

The main objective of preflight videos are informing the passengers about the flight and emergency situations. These videos tend to be boring for passenger and many people even don’t pay attention. However some airlines take the advantage of this opportunity and change this boring ritual into a fun marketing tool.

In her blog, Berfu mentions that Virgin America airlines made their preflight safety video like a musical to entertain the passengers and make them engaged. I agree with her opinions about how this videos became an effective marketing tool for airlines. Virgin America uploaded this video to social media tools such as Youtube to promote the flights.

Not only Virgin America, many airlines try to make their preflight videos creative. For example a Turkish airline company Pegasus used the children of their employees as actors. In the video the passengers and employees in the airplane are all children.

With such videos, airline companies both surprise and entertain their passengers which would strengthen customer relationships. Since people pay attention to such creative videos, they get to know more about what they should do during a flight which increases safety.

Pegasus Airline’s Preflight Safety Video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPLJV6YcvUE

Berfug’s blog post:

Preflight Safety Video Becomes a Marketing Tool

With the increasing amount of internet usage, online shopping becomes more common among people. Amazon is one the most popular online shops around the world operating worldwide. Now it offers a new service to its customers, Sunday deliveries.

This week, Amazon made an agreement with the U.S. Post Office about launching Sunday delivery service to the customers in selected cities. This service started at New York and Los Angeles already but in 2014 the company plans to spread this service to Dallas, Houston, New Orleans and Phoenix. Also with the new service now Postal Office delivers packages everyday.

The service allows Amazon to reach more customers. This is a great opportunity for customers to have their packages during the same day that they make their purchase in “immediate” situations. Moreover, the great thing about this service is that customers are not going to pay any additional money.

This is a win-win situation for both U.S. Postal Service and Amazon. FedEx and UPS do not deliver on Sundays and with this service not only U.S. Post Office but also Amazon gains a point of difference which makes it more attractive among customers.

Sources:

http://www.cnbc.com/id/101186539

http://mashable.com/2013/11/11/amazon-sunday/

http://www.npr.org/2013/11/11/244452605/-business-new

Since H&M is a brand which has reasonable and relatively low prices for their products, it has a wide range of costumers. This causes long lines in front of the dressing rooms and cashiers. As their customer, from time to time this factor makes me angry. Sometimes when I see the long line from outside, I don’t go in because waiting can be pretty time consuming.

Luckily, last week H&M has launched a “try and buy” option for their customers. Now there are cash registers and sales advisors in the dressing rooms section for customers to pay directly after they try the clothes on. The check-outs inside fitting rooms section will allow H&M to get rid of the problem “long and slow lines”.

Normally this system is available only in very high-end brands so this is an original, unusual idea for H&M. Hopefully starting from the Time Square store, this system will spread to every H&M store.

This is a huge step for H&M. Most importantly, among similar brands such as Forever 21 and Zara, they are going to have the first mover advantage. Moreover with shorter lines they will have more customers, thus their sales are going to increase.

Sources:

http://www.psfk.com/2013/11/hm-cash-register-change-rooms.html

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-11-13/h-and-ms-megastore-brings-cashiers-inside-the-dressing-rooms

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_HwphYIRcu_Q/S746nsVaMDI/AAAAAAAABwE/h8se-eUWrEY/s400/jhjn.jpg

We have been discussing about customer relationships and corporate culture in our lectures. One of the articles that we had to read was about the online shoe shop Zappos. We’ve also seen a video about the corporate culture of Zappos and I really enjoyed their style so I did a little more research about them. Here are some ways that I learned from Zappo’s story which may “put a smile on customer’s face”.

First of all they have over 3 millions of different shoe choices. That’s a great way to reach many customers with different preferences. Also 7/24 free calls to customer service and free shipping, which many online shops doesn’t offer makes Zappos attractive. The most interesting one that I found is they suggest their customers to look at competitor online shops if they don’t have the right shoes for the customers. They pick passionate people to become their employees and they train them very well.

Take a look at the link below to see a real life situation which proves that Zappos customer service is great.

“My friend ordered a pair of shoes from Zappos that fell apart. This is the hilarious customer service response he received.”

http://imgur.com/gallery/trws6

Sources:

http://ahmetkirtok.com/bir-eticaret-basari-hikayesi-zappos/

View post on imgur.com

http://suitcaseentrepreneur.com/business-resources/delivering-happiness-zappos-style%E2%80%93-what-any-business-can-learn-from-this-billion-dollar-success-story/

http://www.mikekerr.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/zappos-team.jpg