I knew I'd have competition when I applied at the Apple Store, but I
also knew store managers hire from the ranks of the brand's fans. Apple
is surely a rare bird--few companies have such a broad and committed
following, let alone frontline employees who revere its CEO. (When I
worked at Gap, then-CEO Paul Pressler showed up in the store and
coworkers knew he was a bigwig but didn't realize he was the boss.)
But even companies that have devotees don't always look as hard for
passion as they should. On its hiring application, Starbucks asked
briefly about my interest in coffee ("What do you like about coffee?")
but left it at that.
In my journey, only the Container Store did as good a job as Apple
Stores at finding people passionate about what they're selling. When I
went in for my Container Store group interview, I choked during a
show-and-tell exercise that's an impromptu sales
demonstration-slash-passion display that rapidly separates wannabes
(like me) from the real deal. Learning from that experience, in my
Apple Store interview, I talked about all the Apple products in my
life: from iPods to iMacs, AppleCare to Safari.
Once on staff, I learned the difference between a gigahertz and a
gigabyte, but more important, I saw that, like the iPod's user
interface, training of Apple Store employees has been carefully
designed. A series of podcasts I listened to and watched showed that
selling was all about the approach. I shadowed other workers as they
executed the company's three-step sales process. They explained to
customers that they had some questions to understand their needs, got
permission to fire away, and then kept digging to ascertain which
products would be best. Position, permission, probe.
All this sets the employee's on-the-job attitude. At an Apple Store,
workers don't seem to be selling (or working) too hard, just hanging
out and dispensing information. And that moves a ridiculous amount of
goods: Apple employees help sell $4,000 worth of product per square
foot per month. When employees become sharers of information, instead
of sellers of products, customers respond.
Many companies fail from the start by talking down to their new
hires and using training materials geared for the lowest common
denominator. Gap started employee orientation on the wrong foot by
showing us a video about the perils of employee theft. Starbucks handed
out Orwellian handbooks telling us to "Be Authentic." Such approaches
produce cynicism and engender a fake sense of belonging, if any at all.
Apple treated us like adults.
Apple does a lot of other things well. Employees are taught how to
work together because customers notice when employees don't get along.
Apple floods its retail zone with staff because the bottom line suffers
every minute customers wait for help. By the time I got to Apple (my
last stop), I knew that dress codes (like Gap's) were bogus and
uniforms that match a job (like at UPS) are critical. Apple requires
staff to wear tasteful company-issued T-shirts and lanyards. Employees
also hand out business cards as in high-end clothing stores, an act
that calls them out as individuals in a way not typical of traditional
retail.
Though profitability depends on the efficacy of these frontline
employees, few companies pay much attention to them. At Gap, when I saw
then-CEO Pressler in my store, I had the rare opportunity to see him
folding sweaters (something I did without end). But he was just acting
the part. Had he gone through training and worked a few shifts, he
would have returned to headquarters wired with new insights on store
layout, customer needs, merchandise, and employee satisfaction. More
companies should take a cue from the UK's Pret a Manger, which
regularly sends out newly hired execs to work in the trenches. There's
no doubt about it: You get a different view from the ground floor than
from the corner office."
As best-of-breed online retail sites continue to experiment and innovate, one thing we're likely to see a lot more of in 2008 is the integration of video content into visual merchandising on the web. 