go-Digital Blog on Digital Marketing

Specifically, consumers who rated companies’ response to their bad service experience as being very poor (1 on a 7-point scale) were far more likely to decrease their spending (62%) than increase it (2%), a fairly obvious result. But among those who rated the companies’ response as very good (7 on the 7-point scale), more increased (29%) than decreased (21%) their spending.

It’s not the first time that research has shown that companies can recover from bad service. Last year, research from Bazaarvoice found 7 in 10 survey respondents indicating that a brand’s response to an online consumer review changes their perception of the brand. Moreover, shoppers who read brand responses to negative reviews showed significantly higher product sentiment and intent to purchase.

According to the ExactTarget survey, respondents indicate that the top daily activities on smartphones are accessing email (91%) and text messaging (90%), while for tablet owners, searching on the internet (70%) and accessing email (69%) are most prevalent.

(It’s worth noting that the sample size is fairly small – <500 – in relation to the mobile-owning population. Other surveys will no doubt turn up different absolute percentages. That said, the results provide an interesting and useful glimpse into the types of activities, behaviors and attitudes held by these groups.)

For the most part, both groups tend to use their devices in similar ways. Some notable exceptions that appear to skew towards the smartphone camp are text messaging (of course), accessing email, getting news alerts (62% vs. 52%) and getting directions (24% vs. 14%). Tablet owners, for their part, are more likely to be found watching videos or movies (40% vs. 30%) and reading (57% vs. 43%). Those discrepancies suggest that tablet owners view their devices more as entertainment hubs, while smartphone owners are more likely to use them as information ! sources.

There’s virtually (pun intended) no disparity in adoption when sorting by gender or by race/ethnicity, with that latter point a significant change from last year’s study, when Hispanics were significant more likely than the general population to be offline (24% vs. 15%). That study did employ a different definition of an internet user for a subset of the sample, though, such that the comparison may not be entirely an apples-to-apples one.

In this latest study, age, income and education gaps in adoption continue to be prevalent, however.

Internet use is practically ubiquitous at this point among 18-29-year-olds (97%), with the vast majority of respondents in the 30-49 (93%) and 50-64 (88%) brackets also online. There’s a big drop after that, though: only 57% of Americans aged 65 and up report going online. That hasn’t changed from last year’s study, when 56% were online.

Apple’s TV business is more than hobby, nowadays. 

Speaking at Apple’s shareholders meeting, CEO Tim Cook revealed the company sold $1 billion worth of Apple TVs last year. 

At $99 each, that’s approximately 10.1 million units. It’s nearly double what Apple did in 2012, according to independent analyst Horace Dediu. 

For the longest time, Apple called Apple TV a “hobby” because it was not one of the major legs of its business. Cook said today, ““It’s a little more difficult to call it a hobby these days.”

There’s been a spate of reports that Apple is preparing a new version of the Apple TV box. It’s reportedly going to support gaming, and perhaps motion controls like the Xbox Kinect. Apple is also said to be working with Time Warner Cable to get video content running through the TV box.

Cook’s comment could be a tip that Apple is developing a new TV product. 

Before we get too crazy and excited, remember: For Apple, $1 billion is tiny. In fiscal 2013, it did $171 billion in sales. 

—
drag2share – drag and drop RSS news items on your email contacts to share (click SEE DEMO)