The article featured here explains how Apple has unlocked the secrets to building great customer loyalty. On their list of the top 10 things your company should be doing are: Stop selling things, hire for smiles, celebrate diversity, empower employees, sell the benefit and last but not least appeal to the buying brain (along with some others). Some of these are self explanatory but others may leave you scratching your head a little. Let me break it down for you. 1. Stop Selling Things: Steve Jobs first started Apple with a vision not "just another way to increase market shares." Most companies tend to center their vision around "selling more stuff" but that isn't very inspiring to others, including customers, so Apple focuses on a different route.
2. Hire for Smiles: Apples employees are simply hired, trained, motivated and taught to create memorable experiences for every customer that walks through their door. The store values a "magnetic" personality just as much as a person's technical proficiency.
3. Celebrate Diversity: Almost everything that's on the list of "not to hire" for another company are on the list of "TO hire" for Apple Stores. Tattoos, obscene hair, piercings, etc. are all acceptable for Apple employees in order to reflect the diversity of their customers within their workers. In short, the company doesn't look for people that fits a mold.
4. Empower Employees: Employees at Apple stores are encouraged to take their time with their customers. Talking about completely unrelated things like golfing or kids is totally acceptable because it promotes a great experience and essentially, that's all that matters.
5. Sell the Benefit: Employees at Apple are taught to sell the benefit of a product rather than just selling the product itself. They are encouraged to tailor to each separate customer. For instance, when someone with kids comes in asking about the iPad, make the kids love it by letting them play with an in-store model which will show the customer a benefit of the product.
6.Appeal to the Buying Brain: Essentially this just means that a store should be spacious, clean, organized, well-lit, etc. because the brain will consume more energy if the store environment is messy or cluttered.
Do you think Apple is on the right track? If other businesses were to follow suit do you think they would do better in sales? ...Would our expectations change?
