The Apple Store Blueprint: Genius Training or Psychological Manipulation Script?

https://gizmodo.com/how-to-be-a-genius-this-is-apples-secret-employee-trai-5938323

by semessier • 3 years ago

3 2 3 years ago

Sales, it turns out, take a backseat to good vibes—almost the entire volume is dedicated to empathizing, consoling, cheering up, and correcting various Genius Bar confrontations. The assumption, it'd seem, is that a happy customer is a customer who will buy things.

Almost too sinister for words. The mind reels. Did they really expect to get away with this?

semessier• 3 years ago

Apple has long been heralded for its unparalleled customer service, with the US Genius Bar often upheld as the gold standard in retail support. Yet beneath the sleek veneer of "genius" assistance lies a script — a carefully orchestrated almost choreographed appearing dance between trained empathy and the bottom line, as detailed in Apple's secret training manual. It is profit-yearning corporate customer service strategy and tactics at its core. This approach, while revolutionary in its design, presents a notable challenge when confronted with complex technical issues and non-technical staff.

This is the story of a recent observation by a catastrophical customer service experience in Europe with a non-vanilla fault: a current MBP showed an oscillating self-discharge pattern despite being plugged in, yet not pointing to a battery issue per se. First level-phone complete fail to comprehend, 2nd level also phone-technically challenged about how to diagnose and triage possible hw/sw issues. The resolution was swap the PSU which occured to _me during the call: in the following I had bought the part myself on my bill (still under de-facto warranty) after phone service expecting it to be resolved in the store. On the following store visit the issue escalated. Even after repeatedly telling the store employee the technical details of the issue in basic terms, plus that there is a full ticket on it from phone support she did not understand at all. They generally don't seem to live or read support ticketing, which could have made it more understandable for her as already parsed by an Apple employee. Expectation was given the prior effort in it, and a clear self-evident resolution in form of no recurrence with a different power adapter, that they would swap the PSU on their bill no issues. Making note of the store employees apparent cluelessness about technology in a fearless-feedback mode akin to the manual she didn't take it well: she replied she had taken 'the course' and called her technical lead as he termed himself. He complimented me out of the store in a mannerism I actually felt semi-threatened by tattoo looks and lack of distance, he also didn't appear tech to me at all. Then asking for the store manager was first prompted as not here, I'm the boss in meaning. Seeing him gave a sequence of replay of emotional engineering, phrases, scripted empathy, customer control ('we filed an incident ticket on it' - that must be the pressure part) and tactical phrases as from a playbook.

This is having plenty of experience with HW/SW issues on Apple over the years including Apple 90s, NeXT and the 2nd coming up Jobs period and thereafter. Based on that I'd call the as-is for at least one country Europe as broken. Being able to handle swapping Airpods is not sufficient. If you sell HW/SW appliances you need to be able to service them. In the US it seems to work much better also underlined by recent anecdotes with a SW issue being escalated to engineering, something that yet has to happen for me in Europe. Here, there is a dreaded Ireland call center and Apple stores with probably majority scripted emotionally/psychologically fine-tuned but technically dud staff, see below.

The somewhat shocking training manual summarized in the URL https://gizmodo.com/how-to-be-a-genius-this-is-apples-secret... appears to be less of a technical handbook and more of a guide to navigating human emotions, prioritizes a psychological framework that is inherently flawed when real-world complexities enter the arena. The Genius Training emphasizes the soft skills — a critical aspect, no doubt — but it does so to such an extent that it risks under-preparing its personnel for the intricacies of hardware and software issues that don't adhere to a script.

Customers arriving with intricate technical problems are often met with empathetic phrases and positive language, designed to soothe rather than solve. The "feel, felt, found" technique, while useful in de-escalating emotional tensions, offers little solace to a user who needs expert-level technical troubleshooting. This one-size-fits-all approach to problem-solving can leave customers feeling unheard when their unique challenges are met with cookie-cutter responses.

Moreover, the manual encourages the avoidance of technical jargon, arguably to the point of over-simplification. Terms like "crash" or "bug" are replaced with softer alternatives such as "stops responding" or "situation," which can downplay the customer's experience and potentially obscure the gravity of technical faults. In instances where precise language and clear acknowledgment of issues are crucial to understanding a problem, this linguistic whitewashing can be more hindering than helpful.

A further point of contention is the hiring of staff whose expertise may not be innately technical. While Apple's comprehensive training seeks to imbue its retail employees with the aura of a "Genius," the reality is that without a robust technical foundation, these employees may struggle to transcend the role of empathetic facilitators to become actual problem solvers. This gap becomes glaringly evident when customers with advanced technical know-how seek solutions that surpass the scope of the training manual's optimistic, yet ultimately limited, playbook.

If there were to be a 2nd and 3rd level remote by phone who could handle it would alleviate, but going by the Europe (via Ireland) experiences, their level of tech astuteness is pretty bad, leading to prolonged unpleasant cases for non-vanilla issues.

In essence, the store tech support, as choreographed by the training manual, is optimized for standard troubleshooting and customer experience enhancement rather than the nitty-gritty of technical expertise. It's a system that excels in creating a uniform culture of service but falls short when real complexity demands more than a manual's worth of guidelines. For customers seeking deep technical assistance, the Apple Genius experience can sometimes feel like being met with a sympathetic nod when what they really need is a knowledgeable dive.

The Apple Store Blueprint: Genius Training or Psychological Manipulation Script?

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