If we ran our business like the Apple Store...

Last evening, Jean's iPod stopped working. We tried to fix it ourselves but eventually gave up and decided to go to the Apple Store to have it fixed or replaced. 

I looked on their website and found out that we needed to make an appointment!  

What???  Did I read this wrong? To buy something, from a store in a mall, we have to make an appointment???  Yup...

So I scheduled the appointment online for 8pm, the earliest available appointment.  We arrived at the mall about 20 minutes early, parked and went in.  The store was busy, but there were TEN employees standing around talking to each other, not helping any customers.  A blue shirted twenty-something checked us in using his iPad and told us we're next in the queue, but will have to wait.  And wait we did, for nearly a half hour.  

At one point I asked the man with the iPad why we had to wait while nearly a dozen of his co-workers were not helping us, and just chatting amongst themselves.  His answer: "They're not qualified."  

Finally after almost 30 minutes a "qualified" employee was able to help us at the "Genius Bar" (no they don't even serve drinks there).  He looked at our busted old iPod, entered the serial number in his iPad and said: "We can't repair it, but will give you a 10% discount if you trade it in."  This exchange took less than a minute and required a "qualified" employee.  Thanks a bunch!

Finally one of the idle employees was sent our way to show us what replacements were available.  In less than 10 minutes we were back in the car, Jean's new iPod in hand waiting to have her latest podcasts loaded on to it.

As we were driving home our discussion went like this:

"What if we ran our business the way that the Apple Store runs theirs?"  

"All our customers and clients will have to go on line to schedule an appointment, weeks in advance.  Then when we meet with them, we'll tell them that we can't help them and refer them to someone else."

This is a great business plan when you're the only game in town.  I guess we'll keep doing it they way we have been and actually help people quickly by providing them with great cusotmer service.

 

~ Wayne & Jean 

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