Apple's Genius Bar Manual That Teaches its Employees How To Manipulate Customers(slate.com)
slate.com
Apple's Genius Bar Manual That Teaches its Employees How To Manipulate Customers
http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2012/08/30/apple_genius_bar_training_manual_a_brilliant_manipulative_guide_to_customer_service_.html
9 comments
Indeed. In other words, Apple is using tactics known to sales oriented organizations for decades.
The post was obviously written by someone who's never worked in sales. This is all basic diplomacy, situation defusing, and empathy. There's nothing new here, other than (potentially) the level of polish provided by Apple.
I learned the same techniques working at Radio Shack and EB Games, and no one there accused me of 'manipulating customers'. I think what a lot of people miss is that if you 'manipulate' someone into buying what they don't want or what isn't right for them, then at the best case you've lost a return customer and all their associated referrals, and at the worst case, you'll have a return to deal with, as well as a lost return customer and referrals, plus a negative reputation with them and their friends.
Sales, good sales anyway, isn't about tricking someone into buying your product. It's about finding out what it is that they really need (not what they think they need, or what they want), and providing that to them first. Sometimes that does mean upselling them to a better system. Sometimes it means downselling them to a cheaper system with upgrades. If someone is mostly going to work at home with an external monitor, and they're mostly going to use Aperture or Lightroom, a 13" Macbook Pro with 8 GB of RAM may be better than a 15" Macbook Pro with 4 GB of RAM. If it's an iMac for a classroom, a larger screen will be better so more people can see what's happening at once.
Best Buy (and other customer-hostile stores) do this by convincing people not to buy Macs, opting instead for Windows laptops that will need more maintenance (upselling them with service packages, Geek Squad, etc). That's the sort of 'manipulation' that people associate with sales, and it's really too bad.
I learned the same techniques working at Radio Shack and EB Games, and no one there accused me of 'manipulating customers'. I think what a lot of people miss is that if you 'manipulate' someone into buying what they don't want or what isn't right for them, then at the best case you've lost a return customer and all their associated referrals, and at the worst case, you'll have a return to deal with, as well as a lost return customer and referrals, plus a negative reputation with them and their friends.
Sales, good sales anyway, isn't about tricking someone into buying your product. It's about finding out what it is that they really need (not what they think they need, or what they want), and providing that to them first. Sometimes that does mean upselling them to a better system. Sometimes it means downselling them to a cheaper system with upgrades. If someone is mostly going to work at home with an external monitor, and they're mostly going to use Aperture or Lightroom, a 13" Macbook Pro with 8 GB of RAM may be better than a 15" Macbook Pro with 4 GB of RAM. If it's an iMac for a classroom, a larger screen will be better so more people can see what's happening at once.
Best Buy (and other customer-hostile stores) do this by convincing people not to buy Macs, opting instead for Windows laptops that will need more maintenance (upselling them with service packages, Geek Squad, etc). That's the sort of 'manipulation' that people associate with sales, and it's really too bad.
"But while he reads Apple’s tactics as outlandish and creepy, if brilliant, I’d just call them brilliant."
And I would read them as standard sales technique. "Feel, felt, found" or "the three F's" is well known.
And I would read them as standard sales technique. "Feel, felt, found" or "the three F's" is well known.
They won me when I spilt water on my 2 months old Macbook Air and they gave me a new one at no charge.
The genius thought it was really cool that I am a programmer and I was developing apps :-).
The genius thought it was really cool that I am a programmer and I was developing apps :-).
I've spent thousands more on Apple products once I got a taste of the return policy. My iPhone 3G was 2 months from the end of it's warranty period and the speakerphone stopped working (most likely from me dropping the phone too much) and because they couldn't solve it at the Genius Bar they just gave me a brand new one.
My taste of their return policy involved me taking back my busted iphone 4 that was 3 months old into the Apple store expecting a good outcome, like I always hear on the internet, instead I was accused of being a liar and that the phone was water damaged and that they could not do anything for me.
Mind you, I had not even gotten to the genius bar at this point and they had not even looked at the white stickers inside the phone and socket to look for water damage.
Looking up my name also would have indicated I too had spent thousands on apple products.
I had to fight and claw my way through multiple managers and then multiple people at the genius bar before I finally got my phone replaced, and in the end, the way the replacement phone was issued to me was almost like I was being given hush money to shut up and go away. It was pretty ridiculous and extremely unprofessional.
It's not even my worst experience at an Apple Store, which says a lot.
I'm still a big fan of Apple's products, but not a fan at all of the Apple Store, and it is unlikely I will ever step foot in one again after what I've had to endure.
Then again, this all happened in Australia, and our standards with customer service are noticeably much, much lower than in America, so maybe that had something to do with it and the Apple Stores in America do have the excellent customer service I keep hearing about
Mind you, I had not even gotten to the genius bar at this point and they had not even looked at the white stickers inside the phone and socket to look for water damage.
Looking up my name also would have indicated I too had spent thousands on apple products.
I had to fight and claw my way through multiple managers and then multiple people at the genius bar before I finally got my phone replaced, and in the end, the way the replacement phone was issued to me was almost like I was being given hush money to shut up and go away. It was pretty ridiculous and extremely unprofessional.
It's not even my worst experience at an Apple Store, which says a lot.
I'm still a big fan of Apple's products, but not a fan at all of the Apple Store, and it is unlikely I will ever step foot in one again after what I've had to endure.
Then again, this all happened in Australia, and our standards with customer service are noticeably much, much lower than in America, so maybe that had something to do with it and the Apple Stores in America do have the excellent customer service I keep hearing about
Well, I've always gone to the stores in the San Francisco Bay Area and people here are generally Apple friendly and those I've talked to at the stores seem to be fairly happy. Maybe there's less Apple-geeks working at the stores down under?
I believe that. San Fransisco is an amazing place full of amazing people.
Unfortunately over here in Australia, I suspect it is just the general state of any industry involving customer service.
When going to many of the restaurants in Sydney it is extremely rare to experience the kind of customer service which you take for granted over there. We don't do tipping, so that probably explains that.
There are no shortage of apple geeks in Sydney. Theres two Apple Stores in Sydney now as a matter of fact - both on George St (the main street that goes through the Sydney CBD)!
Sydney is a lot like SFO was to me in the sense that its impossible to go out in public for more than a couple of minutes without seeing somebody using an apple product!
For whatever reason though, it seems that Apple Australia keeps hiring the people who really don't show a great deal of passion in Apple at all (or people for that matter)
I'm sure theres plenty of good people working at the Apple stores around Australia, unfortunately I always seem to get the opposite, perhaps I'm just extremely unlucky, but I feel its gone well past that point now.
Unfortunately over here in Australia, I suspect it is just the general state of any industry involving customer service.
When going to many of the restaurants in Sydney it is extremely rare to experience the kind of customer service which you take for granted over there. We don't do tipping, so that probably explains that.
There are no shortage of apple geeks in Sydney. Theres two Apple Stores in Sydney now as a matter of fact - both on George St (the main street that goes through the Sydney CBD)!
Sydney is a lot like SFO was to me in the sense that its impossible to go out in public for more than a couple of minutes without seeing somebody using an apple product!
For whatever reason though, it seems that Apple Australia keeps hiring the people who really don't show a great deal of passion in Apple at all (or people for that matter)
I'm sure theres plenty of good people working at the Apple stores around Australia, unfortunately I always seem to get the opposite, perhaps I'm just extremely unlucky, but I feel its gone well past that point now.
BREAKING NEWS: Sales people use sales tactics to make sales!
Details at 10.
Details at 10.
Blogspam.
Original article: http://gizmodo.com/5938323/how-to-be-a-genius-this-is-apples...
Original article: http://gizmodo.com/5938323/how-to-be-a-genius-this-is-apples...
Though the OP is referring to another blog post that calls the techniques "creepy", the word "manipulate" is a bit strong for what the OP chooses to excerpt:
Customer: This Mac is just too expensive.*
Genius: I can see how you'd feel this way. I felt the
price was a little high, but I found it's a real value
because of all the built-in software and capabilities.
[from the OP:] This tactic dovetails nicely with the section of the
manual on things to avoid saying and doing. For
instance: “Do not apologize for the business [or] the
technology.” Instead, empathize: “I’m sorry you’re
feeling frustrated,” or “too bad about your soda spill
accident.”
They're simply using the standard "Feel, Felt, Found" formula , which I believe was pioneered by Roger Dawson in "Secrets of Power Negotiating" - http://www.amazon.com/Secrets-Power-Negotiating-Roger-Dawson...
No, that's just bad manipulation.
If a salesperson is good at their job, you walk away thinking that you came to the decision yourself without any coercion at all.
If a salesperson is good at their job, you walk away thinking that you came to the decision yourself without any coercion at all.
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Customer service and sales is apparently is A-OK if done by any other company, but if done by Apple suddenly it's "manipulating customers?". Absolute hogwash.