Page 103 - The Apple Experience

products, or the patented circular glass staircase. All of these items are
important, but Apple’s success begins with empowered and engaged

employees who truly believe they are changing the world. If you don’t get

your internal customer right, you’ll never do right for the customer.

Unmasking The Ritz-Carlton Mystique

You’ll recall from Chapter 2 that before hiring an employee some Apple

managers ask themselves, “Could this person go toe-to-toe with Steve Jobs?”

The second question they ask themselves is, “Can this person provide Ritz-

Carlton quality of customer service?” I’ve had the opportunity to interview

The Ritz-Carlton leaders, and I learned that, like Apple, empowerment is

one of the fundamental building blocks of The Ritz-Carlton experience.
For over two decades, “The Ritz-Carlton Basics” guided every interaction

between employees and guests, and these twenty rules dictated everything,

from exactly what to say (Never say “Hello.” Use more formal greetings like

“Good morning”) to actions (Never let a guest carry his own luggage). But as

the world changed, so did the typical Ritz-Carlton hotel guest, and it became

time to rethink service values by empowering employees to think and act for

themselves, but still in accordance with The Ritz-Carlton vision.

Senior leaders conducted dozens of internal focus groups, meeting

personally with thousands of employees around the world to develop a new
set of service values. Frontline employees were asking for more flexibility in

the way they were allowed to interact with guests. They wanted to be

“empowered” to do what they knew was right.

In a service environment like Apple or The Ritz-Carlton, the goal is to

create an emotional engagement with the brand so strong that a Ritz guest

will not consider staying anywhere else and an Apple customer would never