Page 89 - The Apple Experience

neglected, they are quick to voice their displeasure on Facebook or Twitter. It
doesn’t happen in every conversation, because multitasking is a very difficult

skill to teach and to master. Apple simply cannot train 30,000 employees to

master the skill of multitasking. But Apple employees get it right much more

often than they get it wrong, and that’s one of the reasons why Apple has far

more “promoters” than it does “detractors.”

Three’s Not a Crowd

Our community manager, Carolyn, once returned to the office after spending

an hour at a nearby T-Mobile wireless store. She didn’t go to buy anything or

to browse. She simply had one small question. As Carolyn entered the store,

she was sure she would be done in minutes because there were only three
people in the entire store. The trouble was there were only three employees,

and nobody knew the first thing about multitasking. None of the employees

made eye contact with her nor did they acknowledge her. Carolyn waited

forty-five minutes, got her question answered, but left with such a bad taste

for the experience that she left the service.

Compare Carolyn’s experience to the day I walked into an Apple Store to

purchase a MacBook Air. A Specialist patiently explained my options and

answered my questions for nearly one hour (truthfully, I had made up my

mind after ten minutes, but I wanted to see just how far I could push the
customer experience). Now let’s be honest. It’s not reasonable to expect any

Apple employee to spend one hour with one customer when dozens of others

are looking for guidance. So they don’t. They multitask instead. I felt as

though the Specialist gave me her full and undivided attention when, in

reality, she also made two other customers feel exactly the same during the

time she was working with me. I spoke to the other two customers before