“At Apple Inc’s new store in Manhattan, the smiling ‘geniuses’ and ‘concierges’ standing at attention are as important as the iPods and Mac computers on display,” Franklin Paul and Scott Hillis report for Reuters. “The store, Apple’s second-biggest in the United States, has an entire floor dedicated to customer service and technical help, a key focus for the company and one that has helped drive sales growth.”
“‘What the Apple stores do is give customers a place to come and feel and touch the products, and more importantly, talk to someone who knows the products intimately,’ said Tim Bajarin, president of Creative Strategies, a consultancy,” Paul and Hillis report. “‘That just does not exist well in the PC side. You can’t get a similar experience at Best Buy or Circuit City,’ Bajarin said.”
“Apple stores pulled in $1.25 billion in revenue in the company’s last fiscal quarter, a 42 percent jump from a year earlier and accounting for a fifth of total revenue,” Paul and Hillis report. “There are more than 200 stores in five countries and Apple said in October it planned to open about 40 outlets in the next year, including its first in China.”
“The new store, the third in New York City, has an entire floor for technical support, one-on-one sessions and ‘pro labs’ — free classes on how to use Apple computers,” Paul and Hillis report. “Its 46-foot-long ‘genius bar’ can help 100 customers each hour and the store has 50 percent more space for tech support and education than any other Apple store.”
Paul and Hillis report,” Known for their clean, minimalist layouts, the stores are hailed by analysts as a model for consumer electronics retail.”
Full article here.
I give [Apple] two years before they’re turning out the lights on a very painful and expensive mistake. – David Goldstein, Channel Marketing Corp. President, May 21, 2001
Sorry but I have to agree with Realist. I spent my very first hours ever on a Mac attempting to set up a previously configured Linksys wireless (which was completely undocumented) and a brand spankin’ iMac. Using only the direction that came with both pieces of equipment I struggled for not 10 minutes but for damn near 30 entire minutes before I, the Mac newbie, jumped on the web and began updating the OS. For the mathmatically challenged that is well over twice as long as 10 minutes. Apple clearly has no future. “just works”, Bah!
@Jake:
As a one-to-one member, I’ve gleaned a few things on how all these stores work in regards to training. You had a bad experience with the free workshop becasuse they work out like this: workshop is scheduled far in advance, and whatever Specialist that can talk okay and is available at that hour winds up teaching it. Hit-or-miss in my experience. That in mind, you shouldn’t base your decision on whether or not to enroll for the one-to-one service on the free workshops. Why? Since the one-to-one trainers are busy doing one-to-one sessions, they generally don’t teach the workshops. It’s a shame it breaks down that way, but you can rest assured that you’d be getting a knowledgeable trainer, who’s also a decent teacher, with one-to-one. Couldn’t recommend it more.
@Lurker:
I believe those trainers are required to spend something like an hour every shift training, for what it’s worth. Not to mention training in Cupertino!
@Realist – So, after 10 weeks, you still can’t describe your situation in a way that anyone can help you? That must be very frustrating.
As far as distance, etc, etc My first ever Airport installation was in a house where the base station was located in the basement at the far south end of the house, connected to a wired hub that enabled connection of my DSL line to both the Airport and a non-wireless Performa. My son’s wireless iMac was located on the second floor at the extreme north end of the house, and my wife’s PC laptop was all over the place. I bought a Orinoco Silver card for the wife’s PC. In between we had the usual assortment of household microwaves and cordless phones.
To set the wireless network up, I took the Airport out of the box, followed the instructions (which are far better today than they were in 1998) and “Boom, it just worked.” I’m guessing you have a larger than average household installation, or are trying to get a commercial-level system going.
My general observation is that the best tool for resolving most issues, technical or otherwise, is a well used set of ears. Most of my communication failures have come from not listening well enough.
That said, there are some real dumbsh*ts on the support end of the tech support line, sometimes. Good luck to you.
“Next time I come I train them to use iPhoto and put their camera pictures in and so on.”
I hope you don’t charge them much for that.
“Okay, plug in the camera”
“Now, click Import”
“That will be $100 please”
@Skeeter – My point exactly. The trainers are victims of “book learning” as opposed to real experience which would make them sensitive to the end users needs. When they stand in front of a groups of (potential) customers, they are Apple. Every word they say, every move they make IS Apple. And if they cause the customers BS detector to go off, the Apple is BS. It’s way too important to just toss in the currently available thumb twiddler.
Hey ‘Realist’:
You’re a freaking whiner.
Go buy a Dell and stop bitching about Apple for crying out loud. It’s painful.
Why the heck are you here? If Apple is soooo freaking bad what the blank are you doing on an Apple fan site?
Despite my earlier post about cra**y Apple retail training, I have to disagree w/the naysayers about the ease of setting up an Apple wireless network. I’m quite far from a tech “pro.” I set up our simple household wireless network, and I have to relearn nearly everything every couple of years when I want to check/modify something. Recently I decided to add an Apple Express at home in order to extend the range of the current network AND to stream music to speakers from iTunes. It took 20 minutes flat and I started out not having any idea what I was doing. I didn’t need any help from anyone; I opened Airport admin utility, looked in a few tabs, made some selections, and voila! Works like a charm. Sure, this still wasn’t very sophisticated stuff, but it’s probably the most that the average consumer will ever want to do.
That’s the great aspect of Apple hardware/software.
Go Apple!!
P.S. Thanks, lurker, for your comments. I think we’ll go ahead and give iWorks a try. Apple’s one-on-one training is a good idea, though, at least for small companies like ours; I hope they figure out a way to execute it properly because it would be a good revenue stream for them as well as support their hardware sales.
You know, it really is boring to read the likes of ZuneTang and Realist and Reality Check prattle on about nothing.
Dicks like them spout nothing but bad news “oh this sucks about Apple and that sucks about Apple”.
That dope Realist even registered! What the fudge for? To waste his life bitching about nothing whatever while the world deals with REAL problems.
HEY REALIST – GET AN EFFING LIFE.
THIS IS AN APPLE ****FAN***** SITE. If you’re not one, then
get the F**K off the site and go troll around some Dull news page.