Dear Blackberry: My Dear John Letter
Dear Blackberry,
I write this letter with a heavy heart. We have been together for a long time. Come to think of it, you are the longest relationship I have ever had. There has been a Blackberry attached to my waist pretty much everyday for quite a long time. I remember the first time we met. You were a brick of a phone with your cute little antenna and you had me at qwerty. It’s been a relationship where we have both grown and have become successful in our fields. Unfortunately BB, I think we have grown apart. Once upon a time, I believed you genuinely cared about me and what I thought, but now not so much.
For the longest time, I have been a true Blackberry customer evangelist. I was one of those guys who sung your praises, recommended you to anyone who asked and was always an early adopter when you came out with new devices. But now as I cradle you in my hand, all I feel is disappointment in what you have become. I doubt you have any inclination to listen to me or anyone else for that matter, but I feel like I need to share with you the reasons why we must go our separate ways.
- Your OS is poor to say the least. While Apple, Google and even Microsoft have constantly and consistently improved and grown their operating systems, yours is woefully behind and to be honest a bit embarrassing.
- Speaking of embarrassing, you should be ashamed of your browser. It is almost impossible to read a web page with your browser. There have been many a time that I could put my BB down, shave and come back just as the page loads.
- Your app store is an absolute failure. This probably has something to do with your crappy OS. The top application developers are putting their time and money in developing for the iPhone and Android.
- As a marketer, I think your marketing has been criminal and you have truly lost your voice. Apple’s marketing talks about “there is an app for that“, Android promotes their extensive capabilities and what are you doing? You have a bunch of people dancing while the Beatles or Black Eyed Peas play in the background. Fail.
I think the final straw in our relationship was the Blackberry Storm. I am an early adopter so I expect to run into a bug or two when I purchase new technology, but seriously, you should go door to door and apologize for releasing the original Blackberry Storm. Very simply put, it did NOT work. The OS was buggy as hell and the touch screen was a mess. You pushed a product out before it was ready and in my opinion, you jumped the shark as a company. You put profits over your customers and once you lose our trust, it is very hard to get it back.
I hope I am effectively expressing my disappointment in this post BB. I had a real emotional attachment to you. I actually wrote an email to your CEO, VP of Marketing and your PR agency to thank Blackberry for playing a role in my wife and I getting married. I am not making this up (copy of email here). My wife and I worked together and our relationship began by us IM’ing each other through Blackberry Messenger. I believe Blackberry Messenger allowed us a way to communicate that we would not of been able to do without our Blackberry’s. By the way, I never got a response back from anyone. Shocking…
One last thing before I end this diatribe. As a marketing professional, I have been amazed with how much your company talks online, but you never take the time to listen. You are making an incredible amount of noise on your blogs, Twitter and Facebook, but its all a one-way conversation. This is not what these tools are for. Look at your blog for example, the amount of comments you receive is a fraction compared to the information you post. If I could offer one piece of advice; stop, take a breath and start listening to the people you should care about most, your customers.
Blackberry, we had a good run, but with any relationship, it takes work to keep it fresh and fruitful. I don’t think you care like you once did and to be honest, I believe I along with all your other customers deserve better.
Which means you will graduate to what? Droid?
That is definitely a possibility. I don’t see myself going to AT&T for the iPhone.
Great post, Cord. You touch on a lot of things:
* RIM’s lack two-way marketing communication with its customers (funny, for a company providing communication services…)
* Irrelevant ads promoting products that haven’t kept up with the evolving market
* The fact that an emotional attachment to a brand only goes so far — the company has to continue performing
Thanks for sharing your how-we-met story. That would have made a great case study and press release, if RIM had paid attention.
I’ve had a Verizon Motorola Droid for a week and I like it. It chews through the battery and the screen often inexplicably goes blank when I start calls. That aside, it’s a great phone — fast/responsive, nice website rendering, intuitive operating system, and outstanding Google integration.
Some people complain about the slide-out keyboard being too small, but I find it’s perfect for my purposes — and I like it a lot better than the glass-only keyboards on other Android models. Try it out, if you haven’t already. I give 4 out of 5 stars.
.-= Karl Sakas´s last blog ..Why you need to keep up with Justin Bieber, and other important marketing lessons from creative director Gregory Ng =-.
Cord, you certainly hit the nail on the head, I like you “Dear John” letter, sadly I was not able to give one to RIM myself, I just ran away when the G1 came out and have not looked back.
Just yesterday I was having this same conversation with a friend of mine and yes he is still a BB user, and is up in the air between Apple and Google, my counsel to him was “Its Relative, to each person” in my opinion both Apple and Google will own this space, because its all about the user experience and both these companies get it.
Soon many people will be making a decision between iPad and the NCC-1701 (my name for the Google tablet, think about it!),because the phones a spring board for wireless tablets, and the PC is aging fast.
Anyway enjoy your new path no matter where it takes you, you will enjoy the ride.
Cheers,
Harold
Karl, thanks for your kind words and recommendations. I am going to check out all the available smartphones on Verizon and see what works best.
Harold, thanks for your comment and I like your name for the Google tablet.
Thanks again!
Even as an iPhone lover, I can relate to this post in many ways. THere’s only so much abuse you can take from your handheld maker or carrier before you’ve got to leave them behind.
Sometimes, you have to hit them in their profits, otherwise they won’t care about the hurt.
.-= Jay Dolan´s last blog ..Likejacking, or How Will They Break Facebook Next? =-.