Hi all -
Fred Lackey, program director for the "Apple Purchase Program," recently posted this note to the program's website:
Over the last few days we have done everything humanly possible to prove to you that we are legitimate. We have posted our technical processes... provided you a toll free number to call and speak to us... given you our physical address... been verified through PayPal, Citibank, and eBay... basically everything possible, we did.
Fred, if you're legit, i'm really sorry that people are so paranoid that they're driven to bash you unjustly. Frankly, however, you have
not yet done "everything humanly possible" to win your customers' trust - in fact, you haven't even done the four most basic things a business can do.
There are four more steps you can take, and should take, to earn the trust of the mac-using market:
1. Register your company with the Better Business Bureau in your area (there is a local chapter), and participate in their BBB Online program (which allows users to click a link back to the BBB site to make sure they don't have any warnings about you). If your program is indeed legit (which I and many others like me would like to believe it is), then you have nothing to fear and everything to gain in doing this.
2. Instead of using PayPal, set up a proper merchant account so you can accept credit cards and process them yourself. This will save you money, because numerous merchant account providers offer rates lower than PayPal's. This also allows customers to feel safe because many of our credit cards offer fraud protection, so just in case a business (I'm not saying it's yours) turns out to be a fraud, we customers eventually get our money back; this assurance makes us much more likely to take a gamble on an unfamiliar new business. Again, nothing to loose and everything to gain.
3. Perhaps most importantly, your site should defnitely, at the very least, have an SSL security certificate from VeriSign or Thawte, like every respectable e-commerce site on the Internet. These certificates aren't just to protect data (which is of course extremely important); they are also essential in establishing trust in the vendor, because the certificate issuers do the work to make sure the vendor is in fact who it says it is, so your customers don't have to fly to Florida and find out for ourselves! I
never buy anything online from a site that doesn't have a security cert from a major, recognized vendor like VeriSign or Thawte. That alone is a dealbreaker.
4. Tell the truth, and be transparent. Especially in the days of Enron, nobody likes businesses that keep secrets from their customers (and calling
all of them trade secrets doesn't float). For example, many of your prospective customers have asked you to disclose an
actual price from a previous round of sales, but you have refused to do so. Your stated reason was that quoting actual numbers results in customer expectations. Sorry, but that insults our intelligence, Fred. When you post those low "target" numbers on your site, you have
already created expectations, and what your customers want is to make sure their expectations aren't too high. The very smartest thing you could do for yourself and your customers is to disclose the full
range of
actual final prices from the previous rounds. For example, "The lowest price for the entry level iMac was $849 and the highest price for the entry level iMac was $1099." Add the same old disclaimer that past prices don't guarantee future prices, and you're all set: you've covered yourself while giving your customers the respect of an honest answer (which is not too much to ask).
Take these four industry-standard steps, Fred, and you'll have my $250 right away.
Peace...
mark
