4 ms·

Apple loves this stuff. I was in an Apple store a few weeks ago to buy a gift. Aside from the "Genius" Bar, there were five employees helping customers and an

by dkarl 16y ago

Apple loves this stuff. I was in an Apple store a few weeks ago to buy a gift. Aside from the "Genius" Bar, there were five employees helping customers and another two employees fiddling with boxes and displays. There were seven or eight customers ahead of me impatiently waiting to be served. There was a lot of ostentatious yawning, foot-tapping, and watch-checking. In the ten minutes I stayed, the employees on the floor managed to serve and check out four customers. Seven employees, ten minutes, four transactions. That isn't incompetence. That's policy. They're inflating perceptions of their popularity and their importance. If someone can see you without waiting, you aren't important. If you hurry for someone, that makes them more important than you, so don't do it. My question is, is this ever a good idea? People put up with it because they have to, but what happens when they don't? (I walked out of the store, but I bought the damn iPad online anyway, because it's a Father's Day gift, and I can't tell my mom and sister we're not getting it just because Apple ticks me off. They've never heard of Android, plus my dad is a perpetual noob who needs the most mainstream device available.) Would people buy less if they were well-treated? That seems to be the premise. Or maybe not -- maybe the abuse is not intended to maximize sales, but rather to intensify loyalty among hard-core fans. That might make sense: banking loyalty and prestige to prepare for a contingency when they have to move clearly inferior products.

starkfist 16y ago
That isn't policy. It's in-and-out at any of the NYC stores, and the one in Rosedale, Minnesota.
- nirmal 16y ago
  Except for days like today it's the same at the Apple store in Atlanta, GA. Super fast service.
- dkarl 16y ago
  I don't exactly have high efficiency standards for retail employees at the mall. What I saw was shocking even by those standards. What was most offensive was that not a single employee in the store, and I mean not a single one, was sensitive to the impatience of the customers. Looking at the body language of the people around me, I think the mood varied from "grumpy" to "murderous," but the employees were calm, happy, and unhurried. Just from a psychological point of view, that seemed unnatural and offensive. Or sociopathic. When someone who's been waiting forever, during lunchtime (hence probably on their lunch hour,) marches determinedly up to a sales guy and tells him precisely what he want to buy, and the sales guy, instead of immediately getting the guy what he wants, starts demoing the product for him, and the guy says, "Uh huh, uh huh, yeah, I've got one already," in a pissed-off tone of voice, at that point the sales guy should, you know, give up and just sell the guy what he wants. To keep stalling and trying to make chit-chat, maybe start demoing a slightly different product, and to do all this calmly and slowly and beatifically, is offensive. Or sociopathic. Take your pick. A whole store full of guys acting like that, I don't know. I just don't know. Maybe it's the culture of the individual store, but I can't imagine it happening anywhere other than an Apple store.
  - starkfist 16y ago
    Do you happen to smell extremely bad? Maybe it's you?
- dkarl 16y ago
  I told my story to somebody today who said that a feeling of overflowing love and compassion combined with complete obliviousness to the needs others was more likely the result of recreational drugs shared at a morning staff meeting than a reflection of Apple policy. So perhaps I rushed to judgment.
hernan7 16y ago
"It is always nice to be expected, and not to arrive" -- Oscar Wilde
patio11 16y ago
By way of comparison, the Wii launch in my part of Japan was organized with kanban cards and high school student labor. Three cashiers, two pickers, one manager with a clipboard of all reservations and sole responsibility for bowing. They blew through a hundred fifty transactions in 25 minutes. Toyota would have been proud... well, OK, Toyota would have said now do it in 24,but there would have been an edge of pride in it.
- stcredzero 16y ago
  I was working in a Cincinnati bookstore for one of the Harry Potter book releases. I was dressed up as Sirius Black. I think I personally handed out about 250 books at the rate of 3 every 2 seconds, and I was one of only several. We had all of those kids out the door and the doors closed well before 1 am. The kids were entertained by planned activities, and we had the parents come up and pay to get a voucher well ahead of midnight. At the stroke of midnight, it was voucher-book, voucher-book in rapid succession. That's the way you do it!
  - krolley 16y ago
    It may be a little more complicated with the iPhone. They want to up-sell you a lot of accessories "do you need a bumper?" "how about a dock?" and then get you activated with at&t or whatever. I think it can be a fairly time intensive process.
    - stcredzero 16y ago
      Considering the news with the antenna, that bumper should be an easy sell even by hawkers going down the line with clipboards.
cmelbye 16y ago
I haven't noticed this. I had to purchase a cable from an Apple Store, and I was approached by an Apple employee that had an iPhone with POS software and a credit card reader installed, and I was out of the store in a few minutes.
GBond 16y ago
> They're inflating perceptions of their popularity and their importance. This is consistent with the reasoning behind naming their tech-support area the "Genius Bar" and the technicians "Geniuses". When people call, say Dell, to complain about a laptop not working, they expect to talk to a clueless entry level technician. There is a bias for frustration. At the Apple Store, one has to make an "appointment", for the privileged of bringing forth your issue to a person with the corporate title of "Genius". People are less inclined to talk down to people who are important and smart. In fairness to the Genius Bar, their standards for customer relations are higher than the typical support org. For example, Geniuses will get a mandatory review if they have received a low customer submitted questionnaire rating.
adw 16y ago
This is the Apple Store on Regent Street, London. It's massive, and it does £60m sales per annum - over £2k per square foot (http://www.mobileindustryreview.com/2010/05/apples-regent-street-store-takes-60myear-or-2ksqft.html http://www.mobileindustryreview.com/2010/05/apples-regent-st...). It's the single most profitable store per square foot in the UK. They're pretty efficient.

by dkarl 16y ago

starkfist 16y ago

That isn't policy. It's in-and-out at any of the NYC stores, and the one in Rosedale, Minnesota.

nirmal 16y ago
Except for days like today it's the same at the Apple store in Atlanta, GA. Super fast service.
dkarl 16y ago
I don't exactly have high efficiency standards for retail employees at the mall. What I saw was shocking even by those standards. What was most offensive was that not a single employee in the store, and I mean not a single one, was sensitive to the impatience of the customers. Looking at the body language of the people around me, I think the mood varied from "grumpy" to "murderous," but the employees were calm, happy, and unhurried. Just from a psychological point of view, that seemed unnatural and offensive. Or sociopathic. When someone who's been waiting forever, during lunchtime (hence probably on their lunch hour,) marches determinedly up to a sales guy and tells him precisely what he want to buy, and the sales guy, instead of immediately getting the guy what he wants, starts demoing the product for him, and the guy says, "Uh huh, uh huh, yeah, I've got one already," in a pissed-off tone of voice, at that point the sales guy should, you know, give up and just sell the guy what he wants. To keep stalling and trying to make chit-chat, maybe start demoing a slightly different product, and to do all this calmly and slowly and beatifically, is offensive. Or sociopathic. Take your pick. A whole store full of guys acting like that, I don't know. I just don't know. Maybe it's the culture of the individual store, but I can't imagine it happening anywhere other than an Apple store.
- starkfist 16y ago
  Do you happen to smell extremely bad? Maybe it's you?
dkarl 16y ago
I told my story to somebody today who said that a feeling of overflowing love and compassion combined with complete obliviousness to the needs others was more likely the result of recreational drugs shared at a morning staff meeting than a reflection of Apple policy. So perhaps I rushed to judgment.

hernan7 16y ago

"It is always nice to be expected, and not to arrive" -- Oscar Wilde

patio11 16y ago

By way of comparison, the Wii launch in my part of Japan was organized with kanban cards and high school student labor. Three cashiers, two pickers, one manager with a clipboard of all reservations and sole responsibility for bowing. They blew through a hundred fifty transactions in 25 minutes. Toyota would have been proud... well, OK, Toyota would have said now do it in 24,but there would have been an edge of pride in it.

stcredzero 16y ago
I was working in a Cincinnati bookstore for one of the Harry Potter book releases. I was dressed up as Sirius Black. I think I personally handed out about 250 books at the rate of 3 every 2 seconds, and I was one of only several. We had all of those kids out the door and the doors closed well before 1 am. The kids were entertained by planned activities, and we had the parents come up and pay to get a voucher well ahead of midnight. At the stroke of midnight, it was voucher-book, voucher-book in rapid succession. That's the way you do it!
- krolley 16y ago
  It may be a little more complicated with the iPhone. They want to up-sell you a lot of accessories "do you need a bumper?" "how about a dock?" and then get you activated with at&t or whatever. I think it can be a fairly time intensive process.
  - stcredzero 16y ago
    Considering the news with the antenna, that bumper should be an easy sell even by hawkers going down the line with clipboards.

cmelbye 16y ago

I haven't noticed this. I had to purchase a cable from an Apple Store, and I was approached by an Apple employee that had an iPhone with POS software and a credit card reader installed, and I was out of the store in a few minutes.

GBond 16y ago

> They're inflating perceptions of their popularity and their importance. This is consistent with the reasoning behind naming their tech-support area the "Genius Bar" and the technicians "Geniuses". When people call, say Dell, to complain about a laptop not working, they expect to talk to a clueless entry level technician. There is a bias for frustration. At the Apple Store, one has to make an "appointment", for the privileged of bringing forth your issue to a person with the corporate title of "Genius". People are less inclined to talk down to people who are important and smart. In fairness to the Genius Bar, their standards for customer relations are higher than the typical support org. For example, Geniuses will get a mandatory review if they have received a low customer submitted questionnaire rating.

adw 16y ago

This is the Apple Store on Regent Street, London. It's massive, and it does £60m sales per annum - over £2k per square foot (http://www.mobileindustryreview.com/2010/05/apples-regent-street-store-takes-60myear-or-2ksqft.html http://www.mobileindustryreview.com/2010/05/apples-regent-st...). It's the single most profitable store per square foot in the UK. They're pretty efficient.