Apple Introduces Major Retail Changes, Including New Pro-Level Positions and Credo

[kingtj]

Wasn't it Angela who came up with the idea to feature the Apple Watches in some of the high-end fashion stores around the world, when your local Apple Stores still didn't always have them in stock themselves? And then, wasn't it her idea to do the "try on" fitting sessions for the watches, by appointment, before you could even take one of them home from an Apple Store?

Sure, that's "retail look and feel" related, but it emphasizes the idea that a new Apple product should be treated as high-end fashion wear, instead of as a tech purchase. (Heck, I ordered my Apple Watch online specifically to AVOID any of that nonsense in a retail store. I wanted one, but didn't want the goofy interaction with an Apple retail staffer, picking out the most stylish watch band and seeing how the thing felt on my wrist! It's not like I was ordering a custom tailored suit.)

But more directly to my point... You really don't think her ideas have any influence on the product design?! I'd say there's a good chance it "trickles down" throughout the company, especially seeing as Tim Cook seems to still see fit to keep her on-board. If you're working in Apple corporate and trying to do something the "top level" people find acceptable, you're going to look at what they value. Ahrendt sends the strong signal that they value fashion/trendiness right now. And especially when you realize the end product is going to be SOLD in stores that way, it has to affect your product design choices.

Wait, wait, wait. Angela Ahrendt has nothing to do with product design. Her responsibility is the look and feel of the retail shops. These shops SHOULD be more focused on things like fashion/style. It may be difficult for some on here to understand, since your Macrumors participant is undeniably engineering focused, but Apple stores are the main point of contact for most of your Average Joes and Janes. I don't see any of what's being done in retail stores detracting from the underlying technology and innovation. In fact, it just creates a stronger brand image in my opinion.

 

[applepuree]

Bitter party of one.

No not at all, I like my job most of the time, just get a bit annoyed at how the company, or at least my store, works sometimes.

So leave. Why would you want to accept that when you can easily get a better job?

Then get out already. Your post makes you sound like an idiot.

Easy things to say when your not involved. I have a very wide range of experience spanning almost 30 years and have had very specialised positions. I am also published in scientific journals. These are not the sort of positions you can just go out and walk into a new position. I am also of an age where a lot of companies just wont employ. Despite everything agism is still rampant in the employment market. When my last job came to an end, after a year searching in vain for a position, I saw Apple opening a store in my location I applied, and was accepted on the first interview. I have had in the past letters of thanks from my store manager sent to my home for the work I did in store, and for rollouts I performed market wide, so I am not "an idiot" like henrod suggests.

The fact remains, at least in my store, that to get promoted you have to be a managers pet. I have seen this time and time again. I am not the only one in store who sees this.

I guees the retail employees will be issued special watchbands to distinguish them...

Probably one of the better ideas I have seen in this thread.

 

[Medic311]

Liquid damage is not covered under warranty. They are trained to look for these glaring issues before giving options. There's no point in troubleshooting or repairing a liquid damaged phone. Liquid damage is catastrophic.
That is why you should have paid the service fee for your Applecare or an out of warranty replacement. Dont blame others for not being able to keep your phone from liquid.

are you having difficulty reading tonight, son? where did i say my moisture indicator was red?

 

[Larry-K]

The way Apple goes makes me want to vomit.

"Expert" vomit or "Pro" vomit?

 

[saintstryfe]

Somebody in the diversity department screwed up.
I can see two male Caucasians in the background of that photo.

Oh poor baby! Is your widdle white male privilage hurt? Awww... common we'll get you a male ego band-aid, then you can go drink some skunky American piss beer and watch a sporting event where you don't know the participants because if you didn't feign enthusiasm you'd be mocked. Would that make you feel better? Or do you need to assert you're somehow hurt by a picture containing... ::whispers:: girls.

 

[Jaro65]

iPhone Pro is definitely happening next year.

More precisely, Plus will be renamed as Pro.

The lineup will be streamlined and make more sense:

Mac - Mac Pro
MacBook - MacBook Pro
iPhone - iPhone Pro
iPad - iPad Pro

Apple Salesperson - Apple Salesperson Pro

I see how that's going to all match up nicely.

 

[mtneer]

A Genius "Pro"? Only to talk to people with "Pro" devices??

 

[ackmondual]

There are new salary structures to go with these new Pro positions. These members will be paid almonds instead of peanuts.

Say what you will, with more protein, almonds ARE an upgrade!

 

[Larry-K]

Say what you will, with more protein, almonds ARE an upgrade!

While Almonds they are arguably better for you, they only have about half as much protein as peanuts.

Also explains why Almond Milk is so low in protein relative to soy milk.

Hard to beat legumes at the protein game.

 

[amegicfox]

Apple should reduce the size of the apple stores since they no longer are into the computer business

 

[zombierunner]

so um when will we see the invitation for the september event

 

[frankgrimes]

Somebody in the diversity department screwed up.
I can see two male Caucasians in the background of that photo.

Can't wait for Ahrendt and their next brilliant "fashion idea" maybe Pro Skirts and Heels with bluetooth for girls and a blue Apple Polo with stribes that can charge your devices for boys *lol*

 

[melendezest]

Can't wait for Ahrendt and their next brilliant "fashion idea" maybe Pro Skirts and Heels with bluetooth for girls and a blue Apple Polo with stribes that can charge your devices for boys *lol*

Sorry, no, that would be bigoted, bordering on hate-speech.

The politically-correct-Cook way would be to offer both those choices, regardless of physical gender.

Freedom, baby, YEAH!! (in Austin Powers voice)

 

[frankgrimes]

Sorry, no, that would be bigoted, bordering on hate-speech.

The politically-correct-Cook way would be to offer both those choices, regardless of physical gender.

Freedom, baby, YEAH!! (in Austin Powers voice)

*lol* the guy should focus on improving the current lineup and keep his political stuff to himself. Hate Ceos that don't have their priorities right. I also don't know what Ahrendt has been doing, creating a credo and making a more fashionable watch?

Maybe Apple has too many Cooks in the kitchen. Always liked that about Jobs nobody knew if he was left or right wing and nobody cared, he just did a great job creating products.

The only credo I care about when I walk into a shop is simple: "heres the device please fix it" - "well do our best you'll can take it back in X days".

 

[horste]

Although I am taking into account that there exist certain cultural differences between Americans and Europeans, I would say that the new credo is the worst sh*t that I ever saw from an American company. Something to be ashamed and somehow frightening. (thinking of 1984 by George Orwell)
Sorry I have to say this ...

 

[iPadCary]

Promotion at apple is a joke ....
After 8 years I am still at my starting position ....

The only solution is to unionize, my friend.
Will it be tough going? Between management (Apple’s disapproval) and
employees (terrified of losing their jobs in a crappy economy),
absolutely it'll be tough going. Everything worthwhile is tough going.
At first.

But this is a liberal atmosphere, so with the public (sympathy for the workers)
and the anti-Apple crowd (using "we care about our workers" against them),
both going againdt them, Apple will be somewhat "forced" into capitulating.

Just be highly organized and willing to see it all the way through,
despite the aforemention rough seas at the start.

And that you have to order online to buy something in the store is insane.
What difference does it make if the sale data is input by you at home or the cashier in the store?

 

[DUCKofD3ATH]

So I guess the new credo is the exact opposite of the old credo? Kinda like Google's new credo: "Be evil".

 

[guzhogi]

When you drop an iPhone and break the screen, Apple will replace the phone with a refurb, but they only charge you the screen cost. Often the phone you receive is in better condition than what you turn in. Making equipment thin and light is at odds with making it repairable. People like thin and light. When they are buying, they aren't thinking about repairability. And to charge for only the broken part seems responsible, IMHO.

That's weird, because I had to pay $300+ when I shattered my screen. Kinda PO'ed now.

As for skinny, I agree, most people prefer skinny. However, it seems like many people here on MacRumors would prefer thicker phones if it meant longer battery life. And as I said, I do IT work, so I'd also prefer better repairability since I know **** happens and would prefer to pay $20 for one small piece than pay $100s to replace the whole thing. But that's just me. Whatever floats your boat.
[doublepost=1472060832][/doublepost]

The only solution is to unionize, my friend.
Will it be tough going? Between management (Apple’s disapproval) and
employees (terrified of losing their jobs in a crappy economy),
absolutely it'll be tough going. Everything worthwhile is tough going.
At first.

But this is a liberal atmosphere, so with the public (sympathy for the workers)
and the anti-Apple crowd (using "we care about our workers" against them),
both going againdt them, Apple will be somewhat "forced" into capitulating.

Just be highly organized and willing to see it all the way through,
despite the aforemention rough seas at the start.

And that you have to order online to buy something in the store is insane.
What difference does it make if the sale data is input by you at home or the cashier in the store?

I'm in a union for my job. People knock unions for driving up costs, but, in my experience, unions also try to improve the workplace conditions. Since I work in a public school, our working conditions are the kids' learning conditions. While many people are fortunate enough to easily move to another job if they don't like their current one, in public schools, there's usually just the one district in that community. So if you don't like the district, you'd either have to pay $10s of thousands in tuition to go to a private school, or shut up about it. I've even had a conservative friend of mine say that they were glad a neighboring district unionized because the board president and his underlings were totally bat**** crazy. In my experience, unionization itself isn't inherently good or bad; the implementation matters more. As long as there's mutual respect between the employers & employees, it should be good.

 

[LordVic]

I wonder if this will actually help or are the "geniuses" still going to be barely above mouth breathing?

My brother just got an iPad mini 2 as a gift. He wants the Air 2 for studying and text books. He took the unopened still factory sealed iPad Mini 2 to an Apple store and asked if he could exchange it for store credit, and pay the difference.

The "genius" took the iPad, punched it into the system, saw sure enough it was legitly bought (same store). But instead of doing anything, says "no, i can't do anything, you wouldn't take a civic to a BMW and ask for an exchange".

 

[kingtj]

That's ONE option, but not the ONLY one!

The whole time I used to work as a PC service tech, people were trying to convince us to form some kind of union. And to this day, it never happened. I think that's because truthfully, the job was only worth what people valued it at -- and that value was a little bit less than what all of us technicians thought of ourselves.

Being a good service tech requires a lot of specialized skills and knowledge, PLUS abilities like good "people skills" if you're going to be expected to ever interact with the people paying you for the work. It also requires a lot of patience and tenacity. Just giving up on something you can't seem to get working right is really not an option. That, in turn, usually equates to putting in a lot of time over and above what you're paid for "on the clock". Because when GOOD techs get stumped, they start researching the problem online or even try to replicate it with their own equipment at home, in an effort to find the answer. So with all of that, SURE - *we* were always disgruntled by the low pay vs. what we did. (It gets disheartening when you're regularly expected to quickly get broken servers or high-end workstations turned around that cost more than you'll ever be able to afford to buy for yourself.)

But when you step back a moment and look at it all objectively? The problem is, people don't CARE how much time you had to invest in getting their broken item working. They simply have expectations of only paying around a certain amount of money they think is "fair" to repair what they've got. Charge too much and they'll just scrap the older stuff and buy new. Then, you have to remember the place you work for as a tech has to pay its bills too -- and often, that's a struggle for a computer store. You're just one piece in the big puzzle, when all those pieces require a cut of the income.

If computer service people unionized, they'd wind up mostly unemployed, or employed in situations where the job was anything but fun/enjoyable.

What finally worked better for me was going it alone for a while, running my own on-site service business. (That way, the only "overhead" beyond my gas money and time was any advertising I CHOSE to do.) People would pay more because you were coming to them and fixing things in front of them -- not making them disconnect cables and bring something to you. That added value. I didn't have as many customers as if I was in someone's store ... but it was more rewarding knowing my success (or failure) was all under my control. Suddenly, that extra "unpaid time" spent to solve a weird problem was an INVESTMENT in my future business and customer relations -- not just time my skills got taken for granted.

The only solution is to unionize, my friend.
Will it be tough going? Between management (Apple’s disapproval) and
employees (terrified of losing their jobs in a crappy economy),
absolutely it'll be tough going. Everything worthwhile is tough going.
At first.

But this is a liberal atmosphere, so with the public (sympathy for the workers)
and the anti-Apple crowd (using "we care about our workers" against them),
both going againdt them, Apple will be somewhat "forced" into capitulating.

Just be highly organized and willing to see it all the way through,
despite the aforemention rough seas at the start.

And that you have to order online to buy something in the store is insane.
What difference does it make if the sale data is input by you at home or the cashier in the store?

 

[ValiumEater]

Basically Apple is nothing more than smoke and mirrors, fancy marketing and overly weak products for their price range. I write this and I realise how I enjoyed my first two years at Apple, what a joy it was to work with people, to meet new and exciting creatives and building the history within the Retail history. It felt like we actually did something good, numbers weren't what was pushing the concept for us, it was the customer experience and we did it well. But then, things changed, and with Tim Cook, everything changed...

...

I suppose this is more to those who were once on the inside, not so much to those who weren't... Not all had bad experiences, but those who were there in a higher positions throughout the years, moved from store to store for observation and management... yeah... we saw thins differently. It's a crime what they made us do to our employees.

Praise be, praise be. Exactly. I loooooved working for Apple back in 2003-2006. The people weren't drones, they were coders, musicians, designers, etc. I went to school in the morning, work as video editor in the afternoon, then work at the Apple Store until close. I taught Final Cut Pro Studio to customers on certain days in a group and Apple had a specific script for employees to work from. I said f*** it and taught people my own workflow and left everything very open ended for questions while still showing off the strengths and features of the software, my manager didn't mind at all, she thought it was better and more approachable than a scripted presentation.

And during overnights (when product and signage gets swapped), my fellow Apple employees and I had a blast. We were a 30' mall store so we were the only ones left and played music loud, told jokes, and just had an overall love for everything Apple. It WAS the best retail job ever. No commission to worry about, got paid decently, no manager forcing you to upsell or sell services like ProCare many customers didn't need, no hard focus on AppleCare/.Mac/ProCare sales (they were important, but not a priority). It was...how can I say this...fun!

Then it all changed...
[doublepost=1472263185][/doublepost]

The "genius" took the iPad, punched it into the system, saw sure enough it was legitly bought (same store). But instead of doing anything, says "no, i can't do anything, you wouldn't take a civic to a BMW and ask for an exchange".

Jesus, that "genius" is an ass. I would have swapped it, no question, and your brother would have had what he wanted in 5 minutes tops. It's what we used to call Surprise and Delight.

 

[grahamperrin]

… loooooved working for Apple back in 2003-2006. The people weren't drones, they were coders, musicians, designers, etc. I went to school in the morning, work as video editor in the afternoon, then work at the Apple Store until close. I taught Final Cut Pro Studio to customers on certain days in a group and Apple had a specific script for employees to work from. I said f*** it and taught people my own workflow and left everything very open ended for questions while still showing off the strengths and features of the software, my manager didn't mind at all, she thought it was better and more approachable than a scripted presentation. …

I'm reminded of someone who demonstrated video software (probably Final Cut of some sort) at an Apple stand at an event at the Metropole in Brighton in … it must have been 2002 (Macintosh Server G4 on display, with the first version of Mac OX Server, before it became available to the public). Apple knew how to put on a show, and the dedication showed; the expertise blew me away.

 

[ConnYoungy]

Praise be, praise be. Exactly. I loooooved working for Apple back in 2003-2006. The people weren't drones, they were coders, musicians, designers, etc. I went to school in the morning, work as video editor in the afternoon, then work at the Apple Store until close. I taught Final Cut Pro Studio to customers on certain days in a group and Apple had a specific script for employees to work from. I said f*** it and taught people my own workflow and left everything very open ended for questions while still showing off the strengths and features of the software, my manager didn't mind at all, she thought it was better and more approachable than a scripted presentation.

And during overnights (when product and signage gets swapped), my fellow Apple employees and I had a blast. We were a 30' mall store so we were the only ones left and played music loud, told jokes, and just had an overall love for everything Apple. It WAS the best retail job ever. No commission to worry about, got paid decently, no manager forcing you to upsell or sell services like ProCare many customers didn't need, no hard focus on AppleCare/.Mac/ProCare sales (they were important, but not a priority). It was...how can I say this...fun!

Then it all changed...
[doublepost=1472263185][/doublepost]

Jesus, that "genius" is an ass. I would have swapped it, no question, and your brother would have had what he wanted in 5 minutes tops. It's what we used to call Surprise and Delight.

How did it change, exactly?

 

[truthertech]

Praise be, praise be. Exactly. I loooooved working for Apple back in 2003-2006. The people weren't drones, they were coders, musicians, designers, etc. I went to school in the morning, work as video editor in the afternoon, then work at the Apple Store until close. I taught Final Cut Pro Studio to customers on certain days in a group and Apple had a specific script for employees to work from. I said f*** it and taught people my own workflow and left everything very open ended for questions while still showing off the strengths and features of the software, my manager didn't mind at all, she thought it was better and more approachable than a scripted presentation.

And during overnights (when product and signage gets swapped), my fellow Apple employees and I had a blast. We were a 30' mall store so we were the only ones left and played music loud, told jokes, and just had an overall love for everything Apple. It WAS the best retail job ever. No commission to worry about, got paid decently, no manager forcing you to upsell or sell services like ProCare many customers didn't need, no hard focus on AppleCare/.Mac/ProCare sales (they were important, but not a priority). It was...how can I say this...fun!

Then it all changed...
[doublepost=1472263185][/doublepost]

Jesus, that "genius" is an ass. I would have swapped it, no question, and your brother would have had what he wanted in 5 minutes tops. It's what we used to call Surprise and Delight.

Oh, the glory days, if only we could go back to those days when everyone the Apple stores was talented, dedicated and smart. Why did it have to change? Why aren't the mindless drones that work there now like the amazingly hip, fun loving rebels that use to come to the store after composing a musical score or coding a great new piece of software for Microsoft and just take over the mall for an overnight party of telling jokes, playing music and putting out stock? Well, I guess times change (Oh, by the way, I know it has been over a decade, but the current employees still don't get paid on commission).

 

[aristobrat]

How did it change, exactly?

Every store has its own micro-culture, IMO. His experience from 2003-2006 mirrored mine from 2007-2011. It was just fun. And a ton of the folks I worked with back then are still there now, so I'm assuming they're still liking it.

We were also a mall store (in the lower Mid-Atlantic), and we regularly outperformed the bigger stores in the major NE cities when it came to customer and employee satisfaction. Same company, different results. Go figure.