Apple Retail Lesson #1
There is no doubt that Apple Corporation has set the bar for how to introduce products, how to treat customers, and how to control the user experience, and most of that control comes about by controlling the retail processes.
In this article I want to discuss the relationship between retail employees, the retail customer experience, and leadership in your technical organization (actually this applies to leadership in any organization).
This is the question: Does the way that Apple has structured their stores have any lessons for your management and leadership style in technical environments?
My answer is: You bet… but perhaps not in the way you might think. Let me explain.
About Apple
Apple set out years ago to make their retail stores an “experience”. It was an unheard of concept at the time for the retail selling of technical products. Apple hired Ron Johnson who’s main focus was on the “customer buying experience”. Ron’s goal for Apple was to focus not just on the Apple customer purchasing experience, but on the whole experience from entering to leaving an Apple store.
Apple Reputation
The late Steve Jobs and his team had and Apple still has, under the leadership of CEO Tim Cook, a well-deserved reputation for building products that provide the user with a great user experience in relation to the product. Ron Johnson has a reputation for providing a unique and highly positive “in-store” customer experience. That “in-store” experience has become known in retail circles as the “customer experience”. (This is a little history to set the stage for what is coming.)
Apple Hired Ron Johnson
So, now many years ago, Apple embarked on a quest to make the Apple in-store customer experience so unique and so satisfying that it actually increased the loyalty as well as the sales of potential and actual customers. (We now know this experiment worked and worked well despite competition!)
- One of the important components of the customer experience is the way the store and products are laid out.
- Another important component is what the customers are allowed to do while in the store.
- And a third important component is how the customers are treated while they are in the store.
The first component requires a keen understanding of retail store layout and design.
The second and third require a great deal of understanding regarding how customers move and act while in the store and in relation to the products. It also requires a great deal of training on the part of the Apple store sales staff. The sales staff must be trained in ways to behave and think that allow for the unique Apple customer experience to take place and Apple invested heavily in that necessary training.
If you have been in an Apple retail store you know first hand that the whole package has been put in place. Apple retail stores are highly regarded for the “experience” they provide to the Apple product user. The Apple stores are praised and studied for the experience they provide to the potential and actual customers. And, the Apple store employees are praised and appreciated for their willingness and ability to enhance the potential and actual customer experiences.
The Apple Formula
There is a formula to all this. It does not “just happen”. Every retail store that wants to succeed, every university course that wants to teach the best retail processes, has used and is using Apple as an example of what to do and how to do it. I heard a BBC segment recently on an east-coast consultancy that is using Apple as one of their models for helping companies become more successful. Also, Disney has adopted robots in their stores to “enhance the Disney customer experience”. While some of the specifics of the techniques applied may differ, the focus is the same, enhancing the customer experience.
Some time ago, I was in a mall in Colorado. Down a stretch of the mall from what is now a typical Apple retail store, was a not so typical Microsoft retail store. If it were not for the “Windows” logo plastered everywhere in the Microsoft store, it would have looked exactly like the Apple store. In fact, I found I was drawn to the store even though I’m not drawn to the Microsoft products. Something about the Microsoft store layout drew me in to it.
What Does This Have To Do With Your Management & Leadership?
What does this have to do with your technical management environment you say? Well, until Apple perfected it, the idea of the “customer experience” was not on the radar. In fact, in the “old days” products were expected to sell themselves. Just give the “product facts”, the “product data” and the customer will decide for himself or herself if they want to buy the product. Who thought about the “customer experience”? The customer either wanted the product or did not.
Then Along Came the Customer Experience
Now customer experience is all the rage and it is a concept that all retail companies have to take into account.
So here is something for managers and leaders in technical organizations to think about.
There is a new crop of young people entering the workforce and they have been entering the workforce for a while now. They have a different perspective. They are all about the “customer experience”. They are all about the “user experience”. They were raised immersed in it. They are conditioned to it. They are looking for it. They think the “user experience” is understood by everyone. In fact, in many situations, they are the user and they are wondering why their user experience is not what they think it should be.
So the question is, “How do organizations take into account that the younger workforce is looking for an “employee user experience” that is significantly different than the employee experience of the generations that came before them?”
What if the role of management was to create an “employee experience” akin to the “customer experience” that Apple creates? What if the job of managers is to create an employee experience where the employees want to be as loyal to the company, the manager, the task, as Apple users are to Apple products?
What Do Our Employees Buy?
You, the manager or the corporation might say, “but we don’t want employees to buy anything.” Sure you do. You want them to buy into the company, the management, the tasks, the mission and vision of the organization. The more they become loyal the more committed they become. The less turnover a company will experience.
Past generations of technical workers may have become loyal to their companies and organizations because it was what they were supposed to do, or they were guaranteed a job for life, or guaranteed a good retirement or whatever other reason they might have had.
The younger generations however, are not looking for what they are “supposed to do”. They are looking for the “experience”. If companies are learning that to be successful “selling stuff” to people requires a positive “customer experience” what would be the results for a company that can deliver a positive “employee experience” to their employees?
I am not talking about the typical human resources component of benefits. These are important but they do not comprise the only or even the major portion of a positive employee experience expected by young people.
To their credit, some companies have included pool tables, ping pong tables, gourmet free food, free clothes cleaners delivery, child day-care… these are all attempts to deliver an employee positive experience.
For example Google feeds its employees, literally. Healthy food. 24/7. And it’s free!
Google provides employees time to explore their own ideas for products and services.
Google provides its new parents paid leave to settle into parenthood before returning to work.
All these behaviors have reduced turnover of Google employees and increased loyalty.
However, not every company can provide this level of employee experience. There are other components which, when delivered, will provide an employee experience that will drive loyalty and commitment much more powerfully and they have to do with the everyday management and leadership experience. They don’t require a lot of money they just require a lot of attention.
The question is, “How would managers change their interaction with their employees if they adopted the philosophy Apple adopts regarding its customers; because a manager’s employees, in my opinion, are truly his or her “customers”.
As I said, not every company can be Google. However, many organizational leaders do not even know what would enhance their employees’ “employee experience”.
If you are a manager, just imagine how you would answer these questions: “What would management in your organization do to enhance the employee experience so that loyalty, commitment, and productivity would increase significantly?” “What positive steps could management take that would increase both productivity and increase the positive employee experience?” You have to ask these questions. You cannot assume that what you think would enhance your experience would enhance the experiences of your employees.
If you are an engineer, scientist, or technologist (i.e., not a manager), imagine, what would you want to tell your manager that he or she could do that would enhance your employee experience? And have you told them what that is? If you haven’t you can’t expect them to mind read. You must engage in a productive conversation to share an understanding of your motivations so your manager can understand what she or he can do to make you more motivated.
I know, these are not easy questions to answer and they are not easy conversations to have. But I think they are important conversations to have and they are important questions to answer. The answers to these questions can have far reaching implications for a company’s success.
And I know these conversations can be had and they can be respectful and fruitful. I have had many, many such conversations throughout my career both as an engineer and scientist and as a manager.
The answers, I believe, lie in a conversation between management and all employees in order to understand not just what is necessary on the surface, but what is truly at the core of the positive employee experience in your organization.
Be well,
Steven