Apple retail IS for customers
I worked for Apple retail for almost 8 years and I lived through the many shifts of focus over the years. Ron and Steve had a great vision of the stores being a place of community, to showcase Apple products and enrich customer's lives through ownership of the products. Customer focus always came first because we believed that one great experience would bring in 20 more customers where one bad experience could easily drive 100 away. All along it was still about being profitable since it is a business after all, BUT, it was done the right way through building relationships and not just pushing product or attachments.
In my last year and a half it got to the point where customers regularly outnumbered employees 15-1, yet staffing barely went up and when it did hours went down. Certain employees could only do certain things - if you wanted to buy a computer you had to wait in a queue to talk to someone, buying a case was a 20 minute ordeal by the time you found someone who could ring you out, Genius Bar appointments regularly 45 minutes late (yet if the customer was late the appointment got cancelled.) I saw my peers get burnt out and depressed from running lean, constantly being belittled by upset customers in a hurry. The focus shifted toward add this, add that, push this, do more with less, "close the sale so customers don't go elsewhere to buy." Because just like Best Buy, CompUSA, Circuit City, etc, Apple retail has somewhat became a showroom for Amazon. This was about a year ago, and talking to some of my other friends who have left it has only continued to go downhill since then. I go in to the store from time to time and I still can never get anyone to help me due to only five employees throughout the entire store. If all of these stories about cuts are actually true, my question is WTF is going on - how could cuts make the environment any worse than it already is? Back to the days of staffing one manager, one Specialist, one BOH, and one Genius for the whole day against the current visitor numbers? Are Apple's retail stores throwing in the towel and going to solely exist to be Amazon and other online retailers' showroom?
It's true that the retail stores aren't the most profitable part of Apple, but it's what builds the customer loyalty and keeps them coming back. Retail 101 shows that returning customers are more likely to spend more than first time buyers, and if the experience in the stores suffers those customers won't be returning and it'll be just another big-box chrun-n-burn. Shrinking retail overhead even more is not going to help raise profits.
I could buy Apple products from tons of other retailers, but in the end I still shop at Apple because a little piece of me inside still believes in Ron's vision. I truly hope all of these rumors are just that, and if not I can only hope the senior retail team who worked with Ron can muster the courage to bring the stores back to how they were meant to be - focused on the customer experience, the community, and enriching lives through the ownership of Apple products.