The Apple Experience: Secrets to Building Insanely Great Customer Loyalty (4 page)

When a company starts with a vision such as “enriching lives,” magical things begin to happen. For Apple, “enriching lives” meant offering one-to-one training and group workshops for people who wanted to release their inner Scorsese, directing and editing their own movies, publishing their family memories, or dreaming of becoming rock stars. Steve Jobs said that people didn’t want to buy computers; they wanted to know what they could do with those computers. Jobs understood that his customers didn’t want to walk out of a store with a box. They wanted to leave with a tool to help them fulfill their dreams.

Steve Jobs was fanatical about the details of the customer experience. Jobs once called an executive who worked for an Apple partner and asked, “Are you mad at your customers?” The executive had spoken to Jobs before, so he wasn’t surprised that Jobs had called. He was taken aback by the question, however. “We’re not mad at our customers at all,” he replied. “Then why does your disclosure statement sound so angry?” Steve Jobs asked. “You should be more friendly to your customers at every touchpoint.”

Steve Jobs had reviewed every line of the “terms and conditions” agreement that most customers check or sign, but never read. It mattered to him. The screens of notebook computers in Apple stores are positioned at ninety-degree angles to force customers to reposition the screen to interact with the product. Positions matter. Apple employees wear blue shirts to stand out in crowded stores. Colors matter. Customers are greeted within ten seconds and ten feet of walking through the door. Greetings matter. Nothing about the customer experience is taken for granted. Not one thing. Details mean everything in the Apple experience, and Apple studies everything about the customer interaction to learn, refine, and improve. But while the “devil’s in the details,” an innovative customer experience cannot happen in the absence of a loftier goal, an inspiring vision that attracts evangelists and reveals every ounce of your creativity and potential. Steve Jobs and Ron Johnson had a vision—to enrich lives. What’s yours?

T
he ideal Apple Store candidate knows a little about computers and a lot about people. Read the previous sentence again because it tells you everything you need to know about hiring exceptional people who will exceed the customers’ expectations again and again. One Apple hiring manager told me he would prefer to hire a teacher who doesn’t know computers instead of a computer expert who can’t teach. Hiring the right people allows Apple managers to lead rather than dictate or manage.

Apple doesn’t hire for technical knowledge. It hires for personality. Apple celebrates the diversity of the world in which we live, and nowhere is that diversity better reflected than in an Apple store. Do you have a nose ring? No problem. You’re welcome at Apple. Spiked or colored hair? Again, no problem. Apple would love to have you. Do you have tattoos covering 90 percent of your body? There’s a role for you at Apple. Make no mistake—it’s very difficult
to be hired at an Apple Store. Former head of retail Ron Johnson once said it’s tougher to be hired at Apple than it is to be accepted at his alma mater, Stanford. But there are no barriers to race, sex, age, or appearance.
Apple hires for attitude and not aptitude.

If you’re looking for a “job,” Apple doesn’t want you. Apple prefers to hire people who hear a “calling” to apply. Apple hires people who want to play a role in creating the best-loved technology on the planet. Apple hires people who take joy in helping others discover tools they can use to change the way they live, work, and play. Apple hires enthusiastic people who want to help others achieve their dreams. It’s a philosophy Steve Jobs instilled in the culture. Andy Hertzfeld, an original member of the Apple team and now an engineer at Google, once said that what Jobs taught him was to “follow your heart” and only great work comes out of doing what you adore. Hertzfeld was walking with Jobs near his home in Palo Alto, California. It was around the time the Internet bubble was minting millionaires all around them and those who weren’t rich yet were talking about “exit strategies”—selling quickly for a profit. “It’s such a small ambition and sad, really,”
¹
Jobs said. “They should want to build something, something that lasts.”

Apple creates a customer service culture that lasts because it hires for personality. The company cannot train for personality. No company can. The filtering process begins at the Apple website, which specifically states the company is only looking for people who want to change the world and who want to positively impact the lives of others: “Like when someone creates their first video with iMovie. Surfs the Internet—the real Internet—on an iPhone. Or uses the built-in iSight camera to video chat with their grandchildren. Making it all happen can be hard work. And you could probably find an easier job someplace else. But that’s not the point, is it?”
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On the tenth anniversary of the Apple Store, the company created a poster that was circulated among its employees. It was meant to inspire employees and capture the spirit of the company. But if you read the poster carefully, it reveals much of the magic behind the brand and provides lessons for any company attempting to create a next-generation customer experience.

“At the very center of all we’ve accomplished are our people,”
³
the poster states.

Apple Store employees greeting customers with a warm welcome.
Source: Getty Images

People who understand how important art is to technology. People who match, and often exceed, the excitement of our customers on days we release new products. The more than 30,000 smart, dedicated employees who work so hard to create lasting relationships with the millions who walk through our doors … we now see that it’s our job to train our people and to learn from them. And we recruit employees with such different backgrounds—teachers, musicians, artists, engineers—that there’s a lot they can teach us. We’ve learned how to value a magnetic personality just as much as proficiency. How to look for intelligence but give just as much weight to kindness. How to find people who want a career, not a job. And we’ve learned that when we hire the right people, we can lead rather than manage. We can give each person their own piece of the garden to transform.

Candidates who have gone through Apple’s rigorous interview process recommend that it’s important to have a smile on your face and be friendly
all the time
. Be nice to everyone: employees, fellow job candidates, as well as the hiring managers. Everything is graded.

You are probably not surprised to know that restaurants, hotels, and other companies in the hospitality industry hire for attitude, but you might be surprised to learn just how much personality matters. A Cornell University study found that hospitality managers would rather hire employees with an “agreeable nature” than ones who rank higher on the “intelligent” scale.
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When it comes to customer service, it’s better to be nice than smart.

The best way to build a special workplace is to hire for attitude and train for skills, according to the
Harvard Business Review
. The research cited two companies that have built a unique and highly effective corporate culture by focusing on the type of people they hire. Arkadi Kuhlmann, founder and CEO of ING Direct, is quoted in the article. He is credited for inventing a completely new approach to banking by making it a point
not
to hire people in the banking industry. Kuhlmann noted that to truly
reenergize
an industry or a company, look outside the industry for employees. “I’d rather hire a jazz musician, a dancer, or a captain of the Israeli army. They can learn about banking. It’s much more difficult for bankers to unlearn their bad habits.”
⁵
Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

The Harvard research also points out that Southwest Airlines has prospered for forty years by embracing the hire-for-attitude philosophy. Sherry Phelps, a top executive in the Southwest Airlines People Department says, “The first thing we look for is the warrior spirit,”
⁶
She says, “So much of our history was born out of battles—fighting for the right to be an airline, fighting off the big guys who wanted to squash us, now fighting off the low-cost airlines trying to
emulate us. We are battle-born, battle-tried people. Anyone we add has to have some of that warrior spirit.” Sound familiar?

I understand what Sherry means about hiring people who fit the Southwest spirit. I fly Southwest frequently, especially on West Coast trips. On a flight from Oakland to Phoenix, one flight attendant had me and three other Gallo Communications employees roaring hysterically as he reviewed the safety instructions. Another Southwest flight attendant has become a YouTube sensation because he literally raps the lyrics to the safety instruction (some criticize this behavior, but I actually think some levity actually forces you to pay attention to the instructions instead of a dull, plodding, uninterested delivery). Southwest has built a reputation for reliable service at a good price, but it’s their people who make flying a more enjoyable experience. Southwest cannot train for personality; it hires for personality.

Most corporate hiring managers and human resources (HR) professionals focus on knowledge: how much does the candidate know about the industry or product line? Apple is perfectly fine hiring a candidate who has 10 percent knowledge and 90 percent passion. I’ve met some employees who had never even owned a Mac product prior to applying.
Apple doesn’t want to know how much you know as much as it wants to know how much you care about people.
Apple understands that a person with a lot of technical knowledge can hit the sales floor and lose customers if he or she has a lack of passion, a surly attitude, or an inability to communicate the benefits of a product clearly. Apple wants its customers to leave saying, “I just had an amazing experience. I can’t wait to go home and get started!”

Shortly after leaving the journalism profession as a television anchor (and before I started my company), I worked for several years as the vice president of a global public relations agency specializing in messaging, media training, and presentation coaching. Early in my tenure at this particular PR firm, I was taken aback by a question my boss asked me in the elevator: Are you overservicing the client? Overservice? I had never heard of the word. It didn’t exist in my vocabulary. I always thought PR firms were in the business of developing relationships. Clearly not. My boss had heard that for one new client—a large agribusiness company—I put in a few hours over and
above what it called for in the contract. I had made the decision that our work with the client was not quite done, and I wanted to make sure they were completely satisfied with the experience.