The majority of the crowd in Apple Stores are those waiting for a Genius Bar appointment. Assembling sales and support at the same place is not such a big idea. Disputes occur and certainly these affect sales negatively.
I would dispute your first assertion. I don't hang out in the Apple Store every day, but my personal observations would be that a significant majority are there for browsing and sales. Also, given that Apple Stores generate more revenue-per-square-foot than any other retailer, most of those people are probably not just hanging around waiting for tech support. That same factoid probably bursts the bubble on your other assertion, too. Sales and support in the same room seems to have worked just fine.
Also, at least anecdotally, I can say I've never seen a customer at the Genius Bar throw a fit, much less cause a scene that clears out the sales floor. I'm sure someone somewhere gets angry every once in a while, but clearly the benefits of the operation vastly outweigh the risks.
I just tried to expose Steve Jobs' probable point of view. Selling is a very delicate matter, any single emotional manner, not necessarily in the form of shouting, may ruin a sale developing on a distant table. You can train your personnel to prevent such manners but you cannot train customers.
Take a simple example: whether an incident is covered by warranty or not. No salesman can tolerate such a dispute occur in the presence of a potential buyer.
The trick is having good products in the first place, followed by good tech support. Selling is a much less delicate matter when the thing being sold is of good quality and not so confusing to the customer. Products that don't have frequent quality issues also don't end up bringing a lot of angry customers to the help desk, so the level of frustration generated by that part of the store is already much lower than it might be at other stores. Finally, they don't let visitors to the Genius Bar stand around wondering if anyone is going to help them, and they engage each person at whatever their level of understanding is, and go from there. As for your warranty conundrum, they're pretty clear about their warranties in the first place, and even then, they tend to go the extra mile anyway. You don't need to "train customers" when you start out by providing good service.
People want information without the sales pitch. (the opposite of BestBuy)
I remembered when CompUSA was failing and Gateway opened something similar to Apple Store's. I thought at the time, that it would never work. Gateway is now gone.
Apple did the same thing, and it worked. Personally, I think it worked because everyone needs a phone and needs them fixed/replaced fast.
The Genius Bar worked, because of, and built on top of that.
They are like a Verizon Store (with better service) + computers.
If you go to BestBuy you get both the pressure sales + people that don't know what they are talking about (because there are to many products). Try comparing all the Windows PC's at BestBuy... I'd need a spreadsheet.
I don't care of they suck their thumbs, pick their noses or bite their toenails; I want a guy or gal in the Genius Bar who knows what they're doing and can fix any problem(s) with my Apple devices. Period.
And yet, here in central Illinois, it's a 2+ hour drive to the nearest Apple Store.
Last year I lived in Western Illinois -- 3 hours from an Apple Store. I moved. I am now so close to an Apple Store that it takes longer to find a parking space than it does to drive from my new home to the parking lot for the Apple Store.
randominternetperson said: Apple store blend the two in ways I haven't seen elsewhere.
When I had an issue with my Apple Watch the genius was very helpful and polite but he spent the entire session texting on his iPad with an engineer for every question. Ultimately they took my watch and replaced it a week later.
The few times I gave it a try I have gone in and told them exactly what I did and what I know not to be the issue, and most time they repeat everything I have done and waste about an hour of my time only to conclude it was broken and need to be replaced.
Can you name a repair service that doesn't do its own analysis despite what the customer says?
I like the sound of Geek Bar but It also sounds too generic. The guys at the Genius doesn't appear that geek-smart either.
I think there's actually subtlety to the choice of using Genius rather than something like Geek. It's about bridging the gap between non-tech customers and tech service personnel. While Geek may be something like a badge of honor for a tech person, for the rest of the world there's an element of dismissive, nerdy other-ness to the term. So if it had been called the Geek Bar, there would be a social distancing between customer and staff before the first word is spoken. Genius, on the other hand, is fairly universally thought of as a term of respect. You don't have to like a geek, but a genius? This guy's a genius! You've got to love a genius!
Comments
So glad Jobs knew when others had a better idea.
I remembered when CompUSA was failing and Gateway opened something similar to Apple Store's. I thought at the time, that it would never work. Gateway is now gone.
Apple did the same thing, and it worked. Personally, I think it worked because everyone needs a phone and needs them fixed/replaced fast.
The Genius Bar worked, because of, and built on top of that.
They are like a Verizon Store (with better service) + computers.
If you go to BestBuy you get both the pressure sales + people that don't know what they are talking about (because there are to many products). Try comparing all the Windows PC's at BestBuy... I'd need a spreadsheet.
Apple products are comparatively simple...
Period.
If so, when did they go out of business?