Huan this phone, but as soon as you hold the metal seams on both sides of the phone, the signal disappears. Can you solve it? “
Two hours later, Jobs replied: “Don’t hold your phone like this, change it.”
This kind of “shake pot”, the fans quit, turned around and gave the material to the media. As soon as the news came out, even the media that had previously supported Apple and Steve Jobs turned up.
The famous public relations crisis “antenna door” in the history of contemporary science and technology broke out.
“Closed, ego, arrogant, domineering, arrogant …” Critics have done everything they can to describe derogatory terms to describe Jobs and Apple.
Apple hurriedly issued an open letter, but just “recaptured” Jobs’ words again:
“Any mobile phone being held will affect the antenna signal. If you encounter such a situation, you should avoid covering the black bars between the metal pieces when holding it.”
At the same time, Apple also officially explained that the signal reception problem of the iPhone 4 is a software problem, and promised that with the upgrade of ios4.0.1 in a few weeks, the problem could be solved.
However, the crisis continues to ferment. By early July, the US Consumer Report was confirmed by a series of rigorous experiments:
The antenna signal problem of iPhone 4 is not a software category. And it is not recommended for consumers to buy.
This has become a watershed in crisis events. Earlier, the “antenna door” only stayed at the level of drool wars; thereafter, Apple’s sales were directly affected.
When things were so uproar, Jobs was on vacation with his wife and children in Hawaii. Arthur Levins, a member of Apple’s board of directors, made a phone call to report the incident.
Jobs is confident that there is no problem with the phone, and firmly believes that Google and Motorola are playing tricks. Google was an opponent of Apple’s mobile phone system, and Motorola was the mobile phone overlord at the time. Apple’s rapid growth does pose a threat to both.
“They want to bring down Apple.” Jobs dropped a sentence.
Arthur Levins reminded Jobs that the public thinks Apple is arrogant, and also wants to remind him to be humble: “Let ’s see if there is a problem?”
Jobs was very upset and left a sentence: “Going to TMD, this is not worth the effort.”
▲ Screenshot of the movie “Steve Jobs”
“He thought deep down that he could never be like pragmatismPeople make obvious mistakes. “Arthur Levins knew Jobs, and he said:” If Jobs thinks he is right, he has never thought about questioning himself. “
02
The “antenna gate” continued to ferment, and Apple executives took turns to persuade Steve Jobs to resolve the matter, but Steve Jobs rejected it.
If the Consumer Report survey raised the “antenna door” to an accident, Bloomberg’s report escalated the matter to a “corporate credit” level disaster.
On July 14th, Bloomberg broke into Apple and dug out the material-“Engineers warned Jobs at the beginning of the iPhone 4 design that this antenna design was unreliable.”
Apple shares fell more than 4% on the day.
Apple’s “big minister” Tim Cook can’t hold back anymore, he said seriously to Jobs: “Some people think that Apple will become another Microsoft, complacent and arrogant.”
No one knows what happened to Jobs’ heart at that time. But after some consideration, his attitude finally changed:
“Let’s figure this out.”
Jobs doesn’t believe much in Consumer Reports data. After receiving the data about the signal loss collected from AT & T (American Telephone and Telegraph Company), he realized:
The actual situation is not as serious as the media’s controversy, but Apple’s antenna signal did go wrong.
When designing the iPhone 4, design director Jonny Iffer’s strong desire for design and the basic laws of physics created an irreconcilable contradiction-metal should not be placed near the antenna.
Physicist Faraday has already confirmed that electromagnetic waves cannot penetrate metals, and they will be bypassed when they encounter metals. Therefore, when the metal case completely encloses the mobile phone, a “Faraday cage” will be formed.
So when a person holds the antenna slot of the iPhone 4, the hand and metal form a path, and a “Faraday cage” is formed. Some engineers have suggested spraying a coating on the outside of the steel ring to prevent this problem. But Joni Ivers believes that this will affect the appearance of brushed metal and weaken the purity of the design.
After some investigation, Jobs also finally realized that the antenna design he was proud of at the press conference did have a “very low-level” bug.
However, this is not the time for accountability. How to solve this public relations crisis is the top priority.
“I’m going to come back from Hawaii to deal with antenna problems, and I need your opinion.” Before returning to the company, Jobs made a few phone calls and convened several trusted “smart people” from the Macintosh founding team 30 years ago .
Guys McKenna is the first person Jobs has called. Of the 7 people present, he was the most calm.
After the Toyota incident, HP’s “Cockroach Door” quickly became a hot spot.
CCTV reported on the large-scale quality problems of two HP notebook computers at the 2010 March 15th party. HP Ming, the customer experience management commissioner of the company, responded to the cause of the product’s failure, saying that the cockroaches in Chinese student dormitories are too scary The quality problem is due to the messy use environment.
For the “Cockroach Door”, HP officials do not respond, do not apologize, and do not acknowledge their quality issues. The promised recall has been delayed. A series of “inactions” made HP’s reputation in the Chinese market plummet.
Apologize, don’t apologize, the road seems to go nowhere.
On July 17, 2010, it was the time for Jobs and Apple to make a decision.
A brief press conference on “antenna doors” was held in Apple’s auditorium.
Jobs finally accepted Regis McKenna’s suggestion: Don’t apologize. However, at the press conference that day, he was uncharacteristically low-key.
Jobs acknowledged that there was a problem with the iPhone 4 ’s antenna, and promised to do his best to correct it.
But he did not promise to recall the phones that have been sold.
At that time, the iPhone 4’s inventory was sold out, and the shortlist was already two or three weeks later. It is difficult to achieve a full recall. Even if it does, it may repeat Toyota’s mistakes.
Jobs chose to “pull the phone” into other mobile phone merchants, saying that other mobile phones also have such problems, which is a challenge for the entire industry.
At the press conference, he also said 4 short and powerful but irrefutable short sentences:
“We are imperfect. Mobile phones are imperfect. We all know this. But we want users to be happy.”
For this reason, Jobs said that if users are dissatisfied, you can get a full refund, and you can also get a Bumper rubber sleeve provided by Apple for free-as long as the rubber sleeve is used to isolate direct contact between hands and metal, the signal is basically normal. For those who have purchased plastic sleeves, Apple will compensate them.
In other words, after “pulling the water into the water”, Jobs acknowledged the indisputable fact that “the mobile phone is not perfect”; then, he gave a solution “We want to satisfy customers”.
Jobs successfully firedThe fire has shifted.
After the press conference, the companies named by Jobs not only responded verbally, but also issued signal problems of their mobile phone antennas through third-party agencies.
Media opinion has also been “biased”. In pursuit of fairness, it has also shifted from focusing on attacking Apple to investigating various mobile phone manufacturers.
The cartoonist Scott Adams was ready to draw a humorous cartoon, “A mobile phone that you can’t use once you get it.” But when he knew that all mobile phones were facing such problems, Adams said with a smile: “The opportunity for humor also slipped away.”
A few days later, the cartoonist posted a blog about the incident, marveling at Jobs’ “movement to the commanding heights.” After seeing the article, Jobs also forwarded it to many friends.
“Through a bold performance, Jobs showed people his firmness, justice and innocence, successfully avoided the problem and eliminated criticism.” Well-known media observer Michael Wolff was so amazed by Jobs’ performance.
In the end, the return rate of iPhone 4 is only 1.7%, which is less than 1/3 of the daily return rate of other mobile phone brands.
In addition, the iPhone 4 was the best-selling smartphone on the market throughout the year after it was released.
Do not apologize or recall; admit that you are imperfect, and make an aftermath of “imperfection”; meanwhile, shift public opinion attacks to maintain brand dignity and the market.
As a result, Apple’s “antenna door” has been regarded as a successful model of crisis public relations by many global public relations companies.
The most worth mentioning is that from the outbreak of the incident to the resolution of the crisis, despite the internal twists and turns, Apple only used only 20 days.
▲ Screenshot of the movie “Steve Jobs”