Apple Hiring Fewer 'Genius' Employees at Some Retail Locations

[britboyj]

The quality of the geniuses, in my experience, has been going down for a decade.

Agreed, however Apple really hit the sweet spot on a lot of Genius hiring from 2005 to about 2012 or so. The recession was in FULL swing by late 2007 (but college grads were finding new jobs harder to come by quite a bit earlier) and there were A LOT of two camps: young technically able or technically capable computer science/engineering/tech grads that had no other job prospects in their real industry, and middle-aged tech folks who had be laid off.

The combination worked out perfectly for Apple and they had a TON of openings and need for Geniuses and Apple paid, for retail, really well. Over time though, those people found non-retail jobs that paid A LOT more and had normal hours, founded their own local support companies (I know several of these) and the replacements, either drawn from Apple's sales teams or from outside, just haven't been the same quality since college grads now get hired, and many of the older ones have moved to retirement age or close to it.

Johnson leaving and Ahrendts absolutely gutting what made Apple Retail work didn't help.

 

[Parisi]

Maybe it's me - but I find the line of "Greeters" at the entrance of the store to be very off-putting/intimidating. I just want to walk-in and check out the stuff and will approach if I need further assistance/ready to buy.

100% this.

 

[heinzdembowski]

Not good

The quality of the geniuses, in my experience, has been going down for a decade.

Hiring less of them and/or saving costs around this point are all big negatives.

Fewer

 

[AppleHore]

Goes well with the general company trend of not getting smarter...

 

[3pp]

Used to work for Apple.

The only qualifier used to determine if somebody would be a good “Genius”, which is a Pro level position, is how good their AppleCare sales numbers are.

They stopped sending Geniuses to training in Cupertino years ago, and started promoting people into the role who had never repaired any kind of computer or phone in their life.

Geniuses are coached and told to send everything to depot for repair. That way they can spend more time on the sales floor selling AppleCare to customers.

Used to be they’d come in before the store opens and stay after it closes to focus on the few repairs they actually had in store. Not anymore, somebody could take apart your Mac and another person will finish the repair later in the day when the sales floor is slow.

Point is Apple only cares about sales now, and people with a service minded culture have left the company.

These guys have no idea what it's like to take apart a Tangerine iBook. LOL

I was talking to a "genius" the other day and he was showing me how broken the modern equivilent of kBase is. Funny enough....they all search MacRumors for fixes. Couldn't believe it. I remember the old days you would just search with kHot and whatever code word went with the product. It was the same kbase that apple.com used, except we had more permissions. I miss that old kbase.

Um, no they don’t (regarding promotion from AppleCare sales) and… no they don’t (regarding using MR) - maybe the one person you spoke to did but they don’t ‘all’ do that.

 

[leonremi]

Don't really need Genius's around when Apple can simply swap out your device with a new one under warranty. Many times they have told me to contact Apple support directly via online.

Yes, more e-waste ! That’s the exact opposite of what we should do try and save our planet.

 

[chineseguy38]

That's called cost cutting. Apple support has been going downhill for awhile. It makes no different if they're hiring genius anymore. They have no clue how to fix things anymore.

 

[HMFIC03]

Maybe it's me - but I find the line of "Greeters" at the entrance of the store to be very off-putting/intimidating. I just want to walk-in and check out the stuff and will approach if I need further assistance/ready to buy.

Agree if I wasn’t such a fanboy and investor, I’d would absolutely never go in one again, the greeters at one of the Seattle stores I went to acted more like bouncers than greeters

 

[Kinotto]

Meanwhile, all the stores I ever visited in London are full of staff members apparently walking around the store without a purpose and chatting to each other while customers wait to be assisted

 

[ninecows]

Cutting hourly staffing levels? How is this possible when Apple is making so much money. This is just last quarter. It could be Apple is finding themselves not needing geniuses around anymore.
View attachment 1996970

Apple Reports First Quarter Results

Apple today announced financial results for its fiscal 2022 first quarter ended December 25, 2021.

www.apple.com

Because now investers expect 12% for next year. On top of this year’s 11%.

 

[Zimmy68]

Yep, get that union going. See what it gets you. You are going to eventually be buying from a Kiosk and I'm good with that.

 

[tridley68]

Seems like Apple is moving in the direction of disposable not fixable or going to just swap out your broken for a referb

 

[tridley68]

Because now investers expect 12% for next year. On top of this year’s 11%.

It's all about the bottom line and not the customer anymore.

 

[BellSystem]

Um, no they don’t (regarding promotion from AppleCare sales) and… no they don’t (regarding using MR) - maybe the one person you spoke to did but they don’t ‘all’ do that.

Let’s see you are disqualifying two in person accounts of situations without having been there. Also please tell us your insights as a former or current Apple employee as we both are and one of us posted about things they witnessed while working there. Unless you just wanted to make sure everyone knows my context of “all” doesn’t mean 100%. If so thanks for clearing that up for everyone. For the record I witnessed SEVERAL employees using MacRumors as a resource while I sat there for two hours waiting for my watch to restore. If you care to debate that please let me know what table you were sitting at. Unless you just want to jump to “it doesn’t take 2 hours for a watch restore” without being in the situation?

 

[PinkyMacGodess]

Cutting hourly staffing levels? How is this possible when Apple is making so much money. This is just last quarter. It could be Apple is finding themselves not needing geniuses around anymore.

Ah, that is likely true. Having been at a very crowded Apple Store on very busy days (It takes some fancy scheduling magic to achieve that let me tell you), most of the 'tech support' is helping people find the solution on the system, not doing surgery. 'Oh, click here, then here, and touch that slider, and ta dah! Fixed'.

Do they need so many higher priced (I'm sure) employees to point out where settings are? I've thought Apple, in larger urban areas with multiple stores, should have a central repair facility where all 'surgeries' are performed as devices come in from the stores. They could better insure consistency and potentially stop people having to bring their devices back in because the condition continues, or changes. (Maybe they already do that *shrug*)

Physicians I know say that, in the ER, most of what they do is actually mental health care. Some days they get nothing, or very little that requires their medical expertise, and yet other days, it GSW, PIA, CSC, A&B, all day long. The mental health issues usually take longer, and they are reimbursed less for. (But in this example, should they eliminate physicians? No, heck no, but not all analogies fit)

 

[svish]

Apple might replace the device instead of repair. Or they can even ship it somewhere else for repair.

 

[ThemePro]

I think it’s time to retire the Genius name as it implies you need to be a genius to troubleshoot a problem. In my experience, if I couldn’t Google up an answer to a problem, the Apple Genius didn’t have a solution either besides don’t know or repair. That said, I much prefer to bring a device to the store for repair as opposed to mailing it, esp. for something like an iMac. For complete novices though, I do hope they retain things like free skills training and the like.

 

[Cycom]

Because it doesn’t take a ”genius” to swap out An iPhone or fix the massive majority of problems that John Q. Public has with their stuff. Id bet that 10 percent of what they do is working on Macs which takes much more skill. 90 percent is swapping iPhones and restarting devices or things like “your AirPods arent working because your Bluetooth is off”.

As a former “Genius,” I can vouch for this.

 

[drenk1976]

Another ex Genius here, although I left some time ago.

Moving parts (hard drives, DVD drives etc) used to make up a large percentage of the problems and repairs we diagnosed.

I remember the first SSD MacBook Air coming out and it took us months to see the first one (and that was probably liquid damage). The only moving part on a modern Mac is a fan in some models and they take five minutes to replace. Even the keyboards in the new portables actually work.

On the subject of liquid damage, a lot of phone appointments were for that ("Are you telling me I shouldn't use it in the rain?"..."Yes") which is a bit of a thing of the past.

On top of this, many of the old favourite queries, like "one of the bottom speakers on my iPhone isn't working" I guess don't occur anymore or not so much as people are on their 4th or 5th phone.

Just because Apple are selling more doesn't necessarily mean those products are causing more traffic for tech support.

 

[jeffpeng]

Curious that this coincides with Apple launching their Self-Repair stuff. Very.

 

[ackmondual]

Maybe it's me - but I find the line of "Greeters" at the entrance of the store to be very off-putting/intimidating. I just want to walk-in and check out the stuff and will approach if I need further assistance/ready to buy.

Any chance that they're also there as a security measure? A subtle reminder that you're being watched (mind you, not that I suspect many thefts happen by customers at Apple stores, but still). When I worked as a cashier for a department store, they told us to look inside containers to make sure customers didn't have unscanned items in there, but told us to just say we were ensuring all the warranties were in there. It was dumb. Customers never questioned that, but I'm sure they knew it was also dumb. They just went along with it, figuring we were required to do so, and to make sure we didn't miss anything.

That said, I don't mind them. In some circles, it's off putting to not be acknowledged. However, they would need to find balance... don't "helicopter" over me as I see what demo games are on the Ipad, Ipod Touch, and Iphone. However, if I need help, I should be able to flag someone down and get assistance right away. If they're busy with another customer, then acknowledge that, and I'll wait my turn.

 

[maxoakland]

really??? i walk into a starbucks and everyone is working on a mbp

yeah, they have a small market share. There was an article about it recently

 

[Unregistered 4U]

Any chance that they're also there as a security measure?

This is another “truth” of retail that’s been studied and backed up and is just a part of the standard operating procedure. Some potential thieves are put off just by engaging with them. Not all, no, but enough of a percentage that it’s worth it for companies to have their employees engage in this low impact/low risk activity.

 

[44267547]

Also please tell us your insights as a former or current Apple employee

Bolded:

That’s not a question you can ask. Reason being, current Apple employees are actually prohibited from even participating on discussion sites like this. It’s part of their policy/procedure agreement upon hire.

 

[3pp]

Let’s see you are disqualifying two in person accounts of situations without having been there. Also please tell us your insights as a former or current Apple employee as we both are and one of us posted about things they witnessed while working there. Unless you just wanted to make sure everyone knows my context of “all” doesn’t mean 100%. If so thanks for clearing that up for everyone. For the record I witnessed SEVERAL employees using MacRumors as a resource while I sat there for two hours waiting for my watch to restore. If you care to debate that please let me know what table you were sitting at. Unless you just want to jump to “it doesn’t take 2 hours for a watch restore” without being in the situation?

Chill. Hyperbolic statements were made, hyperbolic statements were called out. My experience is being a store employee for 8 years. Never once did a Genius in my store have selling AppleCare within their remit, and I did not observe any of the team using MR to search for solutions. The best FRS/TS made it to Genius. Clearly the store you worked at had serious issues, but don’t claim for ‘all’ because of that.