Am I, in my late middle-age, missing something that millennials ‘just know’? I need a new laptop and my research had narrowed it down to one of two MacBook models. I decided to visit an Apple Store to help make the final decision and maybe order it there and then. I’ve seen Apple Stores before and have even entered them just to check stuff out, but I’ve never gone with any serious intent. It was full of people, mostly sat around tables looking at their phones, not unlike a busy coffee shop except there was no coffee. There were staff around in their nice blue t-shirts and each kept consulting their identical iPhones, but for the most part they didn’t seem to be doing much to engage with customers. I didn’t much care for the atmosphere so I went to a department store in the same mall and found out what I needed, but I am left a little bemused. I later went to a nice book store where things made more sense and felt a little better.
You go in, interrupt the first blue-shirted person you see, and say “I want to buy a computer.”
Then, let them explain the process to you, which is generally pretty simple, especially if you know what you want.
You walk into the store, walk up to an employee, and tell them what you are looking for. The same thing you would do in any store.
Is this a serious question?
Did you walk in wearing an Android Rules T-shirt, or brandishing an anti-Steve-Jobs sign?
Not my experience at all. In other stores, people say “can I help you?”
Or, better yet, take a number.
Apple stores are calm but still chaotic. There is no order to it. I flagged down an employee and said I wanted to buy an Apple Watch. He directed me to the Apple Watch table, and instructed me to stand over there. I kept trying to make eye contact with a nearby employee who was ignoring me, but having a very pleasant conversation with another customer.
Most people don’t want to be bothered by employees swarming them with “Can I help you!?” every time they enter a store. People complain about Best Buy doing that all the time. Apple has realized that when someone wants help they will ask for it. Every Apple Store I’ve been in has someone by the front waiting for you to come up to them to be directed where to go, they won’t come up to you because that is annoying and intrusive. And in your example, did you want the employee to interrupt their conversation with the other customer to immediately deal with you? Why are you so special that you can’t wait your turn?
I’m sure that they have done a huge amount of research on their sales model, but it still seems to me that it would be better if they had an “info” desk as you came in.
I had no idea I would get a turn. That’s why I like “take a number” systems.
You can reserve an appointment on their website.
I can’t say I’ve ever seen “take a number” in any sort of retail environment. That’s pretty much exclusive to delis, bakeries, and butchers.
One of the things that might confuse you and lead employees to not keep bugging people is that some of the people there were just waiting for a repair appointment, or waiting while their device was being repaired or replaced.
And it is of course possible that you interacted with a couple of incompetent employees. I’d be shocked if those didn’t exist in Apple stores considering how prevalent they are everywhere else.
I don’t understand this. You see an employee talking to another customer and you had no idea that you’d have to wait for the other customer to finish first? Why would you expect them to ignore who they were already talking to to serve you? I have never seen “take a number” system in any place other than a deli counter.
AT&T retail stores have a “number”. When you first enter, they ask how they can help. If you’re not just browsing, they add you to the queue, which is displayed on a prominent screen. You then mill about until it’s your turn.
It’s hard to explain, but there was no way to know she would turn to me next, rather than any other random customer who might have wandered over.
It’s not a big deal. I eventually got waited on (they were not busy at all and there were tons of employees wandering around). I like Apple. I like their products. Their stores, however, are confusing to old people. That’s all.
I’ve long been an old stodgy fogy (in temperament, anyway), but never had any difficulty in “figuring out” Apple stores.
There’s a certain vibe of ultracool–tech-not-like-other-retailers which could be off-putting to some, and it’s not a high-pressure sales atmosphere (which many appreciate). But the process of examining/buying devices goes pretty smoothly.
There’s no reason for that to be the only other option. You can have a desk or something that’s an obvious place for people to go to get helped. You can have people watching to see who appears to be looking around for someone. You can have the designated host who asks you only once, keeping track of who they’ve asked. (It’s pretty normal around here to say “I’m just looking” once in every smaller store I’ve ever been in.)
Expecting everyone to know you can just interrupt the staff who look like they’re busy doing something else doesn’t seem like the best idea. As you say, Apple is being different in how they do it. They’re not working like a bigger store, where you usually just go and pick up stuff yourself, nor are they acting like the smaller stores where there will be someone who notices you and says something.
If you don’t meet people’s expectations, and you don’t tell them explicitly that they should expect something different, then it makes sense to me that you’ll have some people who are confused. Especially with people who were socialized to that it would be rude to just interrupt someone to ask for help—like many older people in areas where small talk with strangers is the norm.
I find the Apple Store a major undertaking that I actually have to steel myself for. The closest one is in Christiana Mall in Newark, Delaware. According to the Wikipedia article for “Christiana Mall”, “The Apple Store at the Christiana Mall claims to sell more iPhones than any other location in the chain.” I believe it. The place is bedlam, packed with several hundred people all talking, and multiple police maintaining order and limiting access (IIRC the sign at the front says only 400 people are allowed in the room). Plus they have cordoned off parts of the mall aisle for people waiting to get into the store, including busloads from out of state.
In my experience with both AT&T stores and Apple stores, each customer interaction can take a while, which is why they need people to get added to a queue.
In the two Apple stores I’m most likely to frequent, the standard for quite a while (except during lockdown) has been that there are a couple greeters up front. If they’re not busy, I can expect them to ask me what I’m looking for and if I want help. If I do have something specific I want help with, they with peck away at their iPads and find an available employee. Sometimes that means that they will write up a description of me and tell me where to stand to wait my turn, other times they will introduce me directly to the person that will help.
If the greeters are busy and you walk past them unknowingly, it probably can seem a bit confusing as all they employees on the floor already have a queue of people to help and now you are not in it.
My favorite way to buy stuff at the Apple Store is the self-checkout. If what you want is out on the shelves (headphones, accessories, cases, adapters, whatever) you can just scan it with the Apple Store app, buy it on the spot, and walk out unmolested. I always feel like I’m shoplifting, but I’m told the greeters get a heads up so they know they don’t need to stop you.
She might have turned to the next person in her queue, which wasn’t you. So you might feel ignored, because you’re not on any of the employees’ lists.
Some of the employees (at least at the back, by the genius bar) will be specialists in certain areas. So you might be waiting for the one Mac expert to help you, while several iPhone experts help multiple people.
They also have a description system for the genius bar, where the person at the front will put “grey hair, beard, blue shirt” into the system, so then when your turn comes up, some employee walks over to you and starts helping.
It might be a bit different on the sales floor than at the genius bar, though.
I always recommend people to make an appointment for buying. I’ve had long waits even with an appointment, but at least I was in the system.
At one point Apple was the most profitable store per square foot. That is certainly in part due to the relative small size of the store, and the high cost of the items, but it also means they’re doing something right, even when it annoys some people. (Of course, that doesn’t mean they’re doing everything right.)