Perhaps the students were treated better at the Apple store because they were buying 15 macbooks. Surely they didn't spend that much money at all the other mall stores.
In the case of the Apple store, these kinds of sales are the last thing a salesperson wants.
Apple salespeople are not paid on commission, and since the guy was told exactly what the students were buying and that they already had the money distributed to them on gift cards, he knew he couldn't upsell them on a warranty or in-store training. Selling a baseline macbook is easy, people line up to buy them. It is the upselling that determines an employee's performance. So I don't think it had any bearing on this guy's behavior.
Out of curiosity, how do Apple stores track how well an employee upsell products? Is there an expected model that sells for each product line, and if an employee exceeds this level on average (say, the EV is a Macbook Air 13 inch and 10% chance of warranty contract but the employee "averages" a 13 inch MBP + 25% success on a warranty), does she get a bonus?
Apple tracks a bunch of different metrics regarding sales. There are no bonuses for performance on any of them, and its quite difficult to get fired lack of sales. The metrics they use are (in rough order of decreasing importance):
Net Promoter Score
~25ish% of people who purchase a 'hero product' (iPhone, Mac, iPod, or iPad) get an email asking them to rate their experience. One of the questions asks how likely you are to recommend apple based on your experience on a scale of 1 to 10. People who give a 9 or a 10 are considered promoters, and those who give below a 7 are detractors. Your net promoter score is % of people who give a 9 or 10 minus % percent below 7. The 5th avenue store's average score was around a 52.
This matters a lot, consistent negative reviews are one of the few things that can get you fired.
- AppleCare %- This is the extended warranty apple offers. This is emphasized pretty hard, managers frequently cite studies that show higher satisfaction for people who buy warranties etc. The official target for this is 50%, but getting over 20% puts you in the top tier, and anything below 10% gets you negative attention. Store average was around 13-17%. Its pretty rare you actually changes someone's mind on buying it, most people come in decided.
- 1 to 1 % - this is % of computers you sell with one to one, which is a year of as-many-as-you-want hour longs training sessions on basic computer stuff. A 6% 1 to 1 rate was outstanding and over 10% was unheard of, but official corporate expectation was 25%
- Sales $
- personal setup % - how many people you can get to sit with an apple employee and be walked through setup of iDevice.
While I was at Apple, they were pretty good about just letting you do whatever you felt was best for the customer. There's was never any pressure to force a sale, and you were encouraged to talk to customers for as long as they wanted.
source: I worked at 5th ave, Apple's busiest US retail store for 6 months in 2011-2012. The store gets over 50% international customers (who often can't use the warranties/upsells in their home countries) so %ages may be drastically different from other stores.
I don't think it's a bonus rather a not-getting-yelled-at perk (or pat on the back bonus perhaps). They can track it rather easily since every employee's ID is tied to the little iPad or iPod they are completing the sales with.
There are some stores that just treat their employees better, even though they're selling similar products, as a matter of culture.
In the low end/mall type environment, look at In-N-Out or Chick-Fil-A vs. a badly-run Arby's franchise. Essentially the same product, but different culture. (McDonald's is even more interesting; they have great systems and generally hire younger or less experienced and more short-term workers, but don't seem to be as happy as the other places. McDonald's does do a great job of hiring disabled people, though -- and for a McDonald's job, a developmentally disabled person who is motivated and happy and has worked there 5 years is probably going to be a far better employee than a normal high schooler who is bitter about having to work.)
Generally "better" stores have higher margins, but not always higher prices -- Trader Joe's and Whole Foods both beat Safeway as a place to work.
If I lived in Iowa, I'd love to work for a place like Brownell's or in Colorado, Magpul, even for a lower wage than a company with less-good internal culture.
Well there was a significant secondary motivation to see how salespeople reacted to the faked "deafness", so in this case contacting the Apple education group would have rendered this secondary purpose moot.
I doubt many schools would forgo saving $1500 of expenses (15 laptops at $100 savings each plus whatever free software the Education group throws in) for a small pointless lesson like this.
Also if I was a student, knowing this experiment wouldn't affect my grades at all, I'd be rebelling against this forced lie and talking out loud "accidentally".
education discounts can be applied in store, as well as the other education offers they occasionally do, like the free iPod touch during the back to school season.
What a cynical attitude. Do you think it's justified to give disabled people a bad attitude and poor service just because they're not spending a lot of money on your product?
Where did you read that in typpo's comment? The was clearly no "ought" implied. But it is a fact that people are treated more nicely by salespeople when they're buying something (especially something expensive) than when they're not.
