Page 140 - The Apple Experience

In today’s competitive global environment, people are stressed, hurried,
and in many cases, forced to do more with fewer resources. Many customers

are discouraged, tired, and grumpy. They certainly don’t want to feel that

way outside of work. Apple has an interesting challenge—how does a store

with thousands of visitors a week turn discouraged, tired, and grumpy

customers into inspired, energized, and happy ones? Store design is part of

the solution, and we will address the topic in Part III. But an even more

important element to creating an unhurried environment involves improving
the communication between customers and staff in a way that alters

customers’ perceptions of time spent waiting for service.

Altering the Perception of Time

One major U.S. retailer that has emulated the Apple model—and has the

customer service scores to prove it—shared an internal study with me that

proves the value of resetting internal clocks. The research was so

overwhelming that the store’s managers coach employees to follow the

method in each and every transaction, and the store has tens of thousands of

employees in North America.

Here’s what the retailer learned: when customers are greeted with a

warm, friendly welcome, their perception of how long they wait is positively

altered and their overall experience is enhanced significantly. Recall we
already discussed the importance of a warm greeting in the Apple steps of

service, but now it’s important to expand on this and discuss how the

greeting makes a difference in resetting clocks.

The internal research trial was conducted with two groups of customers.

The first group was greeted by a friendly, smiling employee within seconds of

walking through the door. They waited exactly three minutes for a