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by siglesias
5043 days ago
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This second-guessing of the post-Jobs executive team has gotten really out of hand, though this was to be expected to some degree I suppose. My personal experience with Apple Retail has still been nothing short of stellar, recently with two almost-no-questions-asked full replacements of a faulty iPad and Retina MBP. Sometimes strolling through Apple stores I have wondered if they were overstaffed, based on the simple fact that lots of people know how to use the popular devices and probably don't have as many questions as they did back when the store was mainly about selling Macs and digital cameras. As for cost cutting, Apple has been doing it for years. Witness, for example, the radical reduction in pack-in goodies over the course of the development of the iPod. The second generation iPods came with a carrying case, remote, and charging brick [1]. The third left out the remote and carrying case [2]. The fourth left out the dock [3]. The fifth left out the brick [4]. Guaranteed if Cook had been in charge these would have been decried as evidence of Apple becoming a stingy, bean counting big corporation that lost its soul to save some money on pack-ins. In reality they were cutting fat and passed the savings on to us. 1) http://ilounge.com/assets/images/reviews_apple/ipod20gb/imag...
2) http://www.ilounge.com/assets/images/reviews_apple/ipod15gb/...
3) http://www.ilounge.com/assets/images/reviews_apple/4gpower/p...
4) http://www.ilounge.com/assets/images/reviews_apple/ipod5/5bo... |
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Firstly, we're basically talking about the mission statement of the retail stores. It was originally to provide a great experience. Now it is maximize profit. This is definitely a big deal. No longer giving away junk was not a change of Apple's mission statement.
What does that mission statement mean to the customer? Well... I would lean towards believing many customers are loyal to Apple due to quality. It is logical to think Apple believe[s,d] in quality because it lends to customer satisfaction, which lends to brand loyalty. If customer satisfaction is no longer their driving motivation... does that mean Apple has killed the very reason their customers are loyal to them? Those "goodies" probably were never considered the very reason Apple has brand loyalty. If it was, Apple was able to change that reason to a new reason (quality).
Secondly, how much a customer can trust the word of a salesman is often determined by whether the salesman is commission or not... there's a reason people pay attention to it. This is far larger than no longer giving away items which were never used & thrown away. Although the employee don't seem to be paid via commission now, they basically still are (points tallied on how many high profit items are sold).