Leaked Genius Bar manual shows Apple's smooth seductions A copy of the training manual used to prepare Apple employees for work at its in-store Genius Bars shows the smooth patter and sales mindset Cupertino seeks to indoctrinate into staff. Before donning the sacred blue t-shirt and becoming a Genius Bar operative, staff must first pass through a 14 day training course teaching not …
This is no surprise (and another excuse for El Reg to plaster their homepage with something Apple relevant). One of the biggest DIY stores in the UK where I worked used to have (not sure if they still do) a very intensive training scheme at the start of your working life there. This was more to cover all the health & safety aspects, but game them an opportunity to teach selling skills as roleplay and through the IT training with specific products (ie store credit card).
Apple are around to sell, it's not the crime of the century, every decent corp has one of these training schemes. The customer will always been in control. Some are more exposed to the selling techniques more than others depending on their outlook, experience, needs etc.
They refused to replace the charger for my £2k MacBook Pro when it broke after 14 months.
They said I should have bought the 3 years Apple Care. I pointed out that i am covered for 2 years under European law, and they said they knew that, but I should have bought Applecare anyway. They gave me some incorrect information about it being my burden of proof, which I told them was wrong, which they then admitted. I then asked what I could do, and they actually said that I could take them to court if I wanted! (They know they'll lose, but also know I don't have the time for all that effort.)
I was concerned it was my attitude with the staff (even though I stayed calm and polite), so tried on the phone, and sent a friend into a differet store, and got exactly the same respnse!
Yeah, the ones in the USA seem way more helpful. But I'm in the UK.
I specifically chose the friend to send in, as they had taken their broken out of warranty MacBook Air into a store in the USA and got a whole new one - so I knew they knew how to ask nicely! He said he'd never buy an Apple product in the UK again after the experience he had in the UK Apple store! I think I'm going to buy any Apple products from John Lewis in future, as their customer service rocks.
Also, anyone want to say why they downvoted my original post? It's a description of what happened - how can that be wrong?
This is how every *good* customer service rep - from *any* company - works with any customer.
Seriously, I've seen this with BT, DSG, and even some government internal helpdesks.
This really is nothing new, and I'd be more shocked if Apples training *didn't* cover this in detail.
What you should get indignant about are companies who don't explain this in detail (or don't give the boot to those who fail to grasp it properly), as they are the ones with atrocious customer service skills.
You're missing out on the fun! Once you've seen a few of these manuals you start recognising the salesschpiel early. The trick is to look like you're engaging, let him get a hint of a big sale, then segway the conversation off into an area the salesgrunt obviously won't have a clue about and let him flounder and sweat for a bit. Most of these salesgrunts are working to a script ("if he says answer A go to option 2, if he says answer B go back to option 1") and the fun is in breaking them out of the comfortable options and into an area where they can't swim alone. I used to have a colleague who was a master at handling such salescalls, he'd end up leaving the salesguy promising to call him back with the answer to a completely impossible question to answer (e.g., "Yes, I like the look of your wireless access points, I'd like to order twelve with 24-7-365 support, but I need re-assurance from your lab people that it will not interfere with my dog's <insert fictional brandname here> pacemaker....").
again, I do see how this affects people who know about IT as we should know what we are choosing.
I just see this as exploiting average joe dumbass who if they cant be bothered to educate themselves, then whats wrong with apple teaching staff to sell to them properly? these are the peopl who walk buy and go 'ooh shiny things' and really need a £2k mac to go on facebook
This helps explain why, when I took a 3 month old semi-functional Macbook to the 'genius' he was completely unable to acknowledge that it didn't work properly or was faulty, but instead would only send it away for investigation (if I was willing to pay if there was nothing found to be wrong, even though it also had applecare). And yes, other companies will do this sort of thing too (ever had a telesales call?).
...just bought an iPad. 2 nights ago he was round as he couldn't connect to his WiFi so i did it for him. Last night he was round as he couldn't connect to the internet, so I showed him the Safari icon and how to tap on it. Given the quality of the customer, I'm presuming genius is a relative term, which in this case means being able to breathe whilst standing up.
Further, the girl who serves me coffee in the mornings bought an iMacbook thingy a couple of weeks ago (she wouldn't say how much exactly, but it was four figures) that died on its arse after a few hours when she tried to send her first email. There is another part to the story where they lost her data too, but I gave up trying to ask what happened as the mention of word like "drive" and "cloud" were just met with blank stares.
She's going back to the genius bar for more help. My advice of she could have bought a new laptop every year for the next 5 or 6 years for the price of that POS made her cry a bit.
I rather think I do not believe you or you are being very economical with the actualité.
I gave up Windows and several versions of Linux (apart from at work where I can not avoid them) and even straight BSD once I got a second hand Apple power book or whatever the pre-Intel ones were called and I realised what a decent BSD implementation it was without all that faffing around required to make Linux usable. Now I've got an aging, white Apple laptop that goes on rather well. It had a a couple of problems caused by physical iineptness of myself (I'm a UNIX software engineer, not hardware). Apple fixed it, twice free and once for a minimal charge for their time. I know lots of people with iPads and Apple computers, most somewhat technical people working in IT as engineers, as well as a smattering of "civilians". Even my 80 year old mother decided she must find out about computers, bought a low-end Apple laptop and, thanks to the charming patience of the Apple staff, uses it effectively and with pleasure to manage photographs, write email, browse and search the internet and even do some stuff for her golf club committee.
So in my opinion, either you are making things up or you are the kind of person who gets struck by lightening twice or your acquaintances have got serious problems in their interactions with the modern world. You are not too bright in the tact and commonsense department either. Or possibly all the people I know are geniuses.
Nope and nope...that's what happened and I never piss around with reality, although you are correct in one area...I have no tact (or diplomacy) skills.
IMHO, Apple sells fashion and the trouble with fashion is that it eventually gets adopted by the inept at which point it becomes unfashionable. Case A is a builder and case B a coffee waitress (and aspiring documentary creator). For those people Apple should create an interface in bright coloured blocks (oh wait, that's win 8) and stop calling people (who know where the on switch is) geniuses.
Speaking of low end Apple stuff...that Currys or Comet advert where the Mac thing is £999.99 and the Win thing is £355.00 or so must make a lot of people go "someone's 'avin' a larff" rather than "ooh..I must pop out and shiney myself up."
Now Jobo lies a mouldering I can't see the party going on much longer.
Mr UNIX software engineer, you do know that friendly versions such as PC-BSD exist? With LiveCD / DVD / USB etc ..... or even OpenIndiana / Illumos if you want your OS similar to Solaris?
OK personally I find Linux easier to use but even so.... might be fun trying those. I also find Linux Mint works pretty much out of the box, and for netbooks you could try Easy Peasy Linux, similar to the previous EeePC Linux.
I would suggest using Dell or Acer / Asus laptops, or possibly HP for these OSs. I would not suggest Toshiba .... from personal experience. The Tosh runs Win7-64 just fine with Linux VMs though (yes, Vrtualbox on Win, I'm not fussy!)
The famous Rolls-Royce story was of the chap who toured the NorthWest frontier and Afghanistan in a Silver Ghost. At one point in his travels he broke the rear axle on a particularly lumpy bit of cart track. He got the car pulled to a local blacksmith's and cabled Royces for a new axle. A couple of weeks later, a new axle assembly duly turned up in the arse end of nowhere and the blacksmith fitted it to the car.
Some months later, back in Blighty, our explorer is doing his accounts and notes that he has not been invoiced for the considerable cost of a Rolls-Royce axle and shipping it to the back end of beyond. He writes to Royces explaining the situation and asking them to invoice him promptly so he can clear his accounts.
The reply he receives by return says; "We are afraid that you must be mistaken in your recollection of events. No Rolls-Royce car has ever broken a rear axle.".......
To be honest I dont see the problem with this. Afterall people skills is good. Dell have a very similar approach with DCSE for technicians, Dell score each engineer quite rigorously on both technical and people skills (at least they did when I worked for unisys). There are plenty of training courses run that not only does the techie bits but also dealing with customers - typically because every customer you attend is usually pissed off.
A uniform approach to fixing or selling stuff is a welcome break from idiot mobile phone salemen who just blatantly lie.
@AC 07:14, that's because your 3 year old laptop would have been out of its 2 year warranty and therefore nothing to do with the retailer.
In the example you gave, it was found to be a common fault caused by a third party manufacturers component. In my experience with common (acknowledged) laptop faults, the OEMs extend warranties to cover said fault. Of course, in that scenario, rather than me having to traipse back to the store, the OEMs courier will collect it from me.
Then of course, you can compare AppleCare with the Toshiba Reliability Refund Guarantee.
MacBook Air 13" £999 + AppleCare £199 = £1198
Toshiba Portege Z830-104 £960 + Extended warranty £72 = £1032
The Apple has slightly better display characteristics ,so quits on the £166 price difference, however, if the Toshiba fails, they will fix it AND refund you what you paid for it in the first place (providing you've registered for the Toshiba Reliability Refund Guarantee).
That being said, toshiba are terrible in the enterprise. Hard drive fail, get diags, send screen shots of diags, offer to send video of you anti static removing drive. No go, you STILL need to send the whole laptop back. I dont mind running any sort of diags to prove it is the drive not the controller (due to the fact ive already replaced the drive and it is back with the employee). I doubt apple would let you change the drive either.
Dell and HP on the otherhand will happily assign you a technician once they realise you A) know what you are doing and B) satisfy all their checks in boxes. Horses for courses really. I'd recommend apple to my grandma, toshiba to my dad and dell or HP to the enterprise workplace, depends what you want and I dont think there is a one size fits all manufacturer.
Breaking news. Apple schmooze their customers. SHOCK!
I've said it time and time again. People would buy shit on a stick if it were sold to them in the same way Apple staff flog their wares. Why do you think the mugs buy the crap? 'Cause they believe the crap.
It's like looking through glass half the time. Just pander to their vanity and "big up" your mediocre product and reel them in.
That sheen you were sold looks tarnished in the cold light of day!
I see various people have made the point that this is just good training for shop-floor staff.
I also see that nowhere in any of the write-ups of this story is there mention made of the manual training the staff how to discuss and clarify the customers' requirements from a computer before taking over the conversation. Ho hum.
GJC
" I also see that nowhere in any of the write-ups of this story is there mention made of the manual training the staff how to discuss and clarify the customers' requirements from a computer before taking over the conversation. Ho hum."
I'm not sure any sales people do anything like that anymore - if they ever really did in the first place. I think it was really just IT literate third parties that would-be buyers went to for advice, ie people like us.
And in an Apple store, it's even less surprising. It's not as they sell different platforms, so if you're there looking at tablets they're hardly going to weigh up your needs and recommend something by Samsung.
So a Sales organisation teaches their Sales staff how to sell? Who'd have thunk it ?! They might become successful, taking that approach.
Of course, as an IT professional and Born Again Disciple of the Church of Cupertino, whenever I go to worship at the Temple, I keep my noise-cancelling headphones firmly in place so that I can commune with the Deity in isolation and without mundane distractions (such as hordes of PFYs trying to sell me stuff I already NEED, and telling me stuff that I already know better than they do). But thats just me :)
Yeah, these are the geniuses who tell me i'm making a mistake when I say I have a MacPro. They think I'm stupid and have a MacBook Pro instead. When corrected and pointed to the MacPro in their very store, the reply is that they're not trained on that one as they don't sell many.
Of the 4 questions I've been to the store with none were answered on the spot and follow-up phone calls were never received.
10 minutes on google will spare people with questions their patronising bullshit and being made to feel like a five year old.
"There is also a list of key phrases not to be used by Genius Bar staff. Apple hardware does not "bomb," "crash," "bang," or even "freeze." Instead it "unexpectedly quits," "does not respond," or "stops responding." Similarly there's no such thing as a "bug" or "problem," just a "condition" or "situation."
No, he hasn't crashed he's just resting. :)
I managed to "initiate a situation" on an OSX MacBook in less than 10 minutes after being given it to play with. And no, I wasn't stressing it or being destructive. I guess you just adjust the terminology ;)
It was quite fun but slightly obstructive and I did think the Launcher had sarcastically large icons, like they were assuming the user was a total dope.
This reminds me very much of a time recently when I went into an Apple Store in London and asked a sales droid if they had any top-spec Macbook Airs on display. When asked why, I told him it was because I wanted to know if they would run the full Adobe Suite simultaneously without stuttering. The blank look I received reminded me of an android trying to process a logic bomb.
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