Genius Training Student Workbook

3 Sep 2012 - mac, genius, sales, apple

The web has been abuzz about the leaking of the Genius Training Student Workbook that Gizmodo got their hands on and quoted some parts from.

It's a 2-week program of teaching you how to be a genius at an Apple Store. It is
shock-filled with really juicy insights into how Apple wants their personel to behave. I agree that it is all about "psychological manipulation" of the customer in the sense that the employees of a commercial store are given examples on how to respond to customer problems in a way that would be beneficiary to the company they are employed by.

Customer: This Mac is just too expensive.
Genius: I can see how you'd feel this way. I felt the price was a little high, but I found it's a real value because of all the built-in software and capabilities.

This passage is listed as an example in the chapter "Empathy Exercise 2 - techniques". It is a chapter that aims to teach the "student" that empathy with the customers issues gives the person a sense of sincerity rather than superiority or condescension. So again, these are examples on empathy - not "this is exactly what you should respond" rules.

The emphasis here is the empathy part of the example "I can see how you'd feel this way" which makes the genius more sincere. The rest of the example is just ordinary sales talk about how to employee is in a position where he wants to sell his employers merchandise.

So, to round this up - the passage was an example on empathy, not a *rule* on selling more Macs. The Workbook is full of other weird do's and don'ts that far outweigh this little example that was blown way out of proportion. And many other companies have similar manuals on how to respond to customer needs and issues. As they should - a company image is very important, and making the employees behave in a similar manner is key to that image.