Apple Store Employees Not Allowed To Be Negative

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There’s a small, but allegedly growing movement among Apple Store employees to form a union and press for better benefits from Steve Jobs and Cupertino. Because of that, there’s an increased interest among some in the life of Apple Store employees. The Wall Street Journal, the financial paper of record, interviewed several former Apple Store employees and reviewed classified training documents. But here’s what they found – Geniuses at the Genius Bar aren’t allowed to be negative.

The Journal reports that Apple’s employee training manuals are extremely obsessive, going insofar as to control the minutiae of how Apple employees must speak to customers. They report that Apple wants employees to limit their emotional responses. It suggests that employees use stoic responses like “Uh-huh” and “I understand”.

Former Geniuses said they were coached not to be negative when attempting to solve a tech problem for a customer. For example, rather than saying “unfortunately” they’re supposed to say “as it turns out.” You may have your own experience with this. I seem to recall taking a broken iPod to the Apple Store (this was pre-iPhone, must have been circa 2005 or so) and the after his investigation, the Genius said “Well, this little guy is broken so we’ll have to get you a new one!” I’m sure you can remember some times in your visits to the Apple Store when the employees were sort of non-emotional and non-committal.

There aren’t any sales quotas at the Apple Stores, the training manuals say, but employees are asked to try to sell AppleCare, MobileMe (now free) or other software services with devices. Those who don’t sell a regular supply of services with devices per month may be moved from floor sales associate to another (less desirable) position.

All this info about the Apple Stores comes after the stores just celebrated their 10^th anniversary and had a major redesign, and as Apple’s VP of Retail Ron Johnson leaves the company to be CEO of JC Penney. All that, combined with the news that some want to unionize Apple Stores means that the Apple Stores are very much in the news cycle for Apple. Say what you want about the tech giant, but their own specially branded stores are a huge brand identifier for the company.