It's a bit of a rarity that I'll eat fast food these days, but seeing as how the brand new Chick-Fil-A had finally opened down the street from my apartment (three weeks before I move away, thanks guys), I figured I'd give it a try. Seeing as how it's only been open for business for two days, I expected some degree of unpreparedness from the people working there. But there's just no way that I could have been prepared for what I experienced when I went there for dinner last night. In fact, I've never seen anything quite like it.
Seven customers standing in line were being helped by eight employees behind the counter, plus others back in the kitchen. With employees outnumbering patrons, this should have been a piece of cake for all involved. But instead, the eight people behind the counter were simply moving around a lot, bumping into each other, and dropping a lot of things. No one seemed to know what his or her role was, no one was in charge, no one had a clue. It wasn't that they weren't trying hard enough. For that matter, they managed to smile the whole time and apologize a lot, even though no one was complaining. Even the guy who took his order to go, and then had to come back into the store after realizing that he'd been given my food, wasn't too concerned, and neither was I. I found it more comical than anything. It's not as if I was in a hurry to get anywhere.
But the whole experience got me thinking about the times in which I've visited other stores during their Grand Opening period. Specifically, Apple Stores. I've been to five of them on their opening day, and in each case, what I saw out of Apple's staff stood in stark contrast to the farce that I witnessed last night at Chick-Fil-A. And it's not just a difference in enthusiasm. The eight people bumping into each other last night were trying to do their jobs, but it was clear that none of them had really been shown (or perhaps even told) what exactly their job was. Apparently the master plan was for them to keep getting it wrong until they finally had enough experience under their belt to start getting it right.
I compare this to the Grand Opening of the Apple Store at Wellington Green in Palm Beach, Florida. I took two friends with me, neither of whom had ever owned a Mac, and both of whom left with their own brand new eMac, and both of whom are very happy with their choice to this day. What impressed me was that the salesman managed to field about two hours' worth of questions that my two friends were throwing at him (typical of anyone considering Switching) without missing a beat. And when the issue of educator discounts came up, he nailed that one as well.
More striking was the Grand Opening of the SoHo Apple Store in New York City. Although the store opened at 10:00 that morning, I didn't manage to get down there until that afternoon, due to this little event going on across town called MacWorld Expo. While I was in the store, the electricity went out. And didn't come back on. The fact that we were in lower Manhattan and it was a mere nine months after September 11th didn't appear to be lost one anyone. Customers looked around at each other blankly. Some started asking aloud what was going on. This was the store's first day of operation. It could have turned into a disaster.
But instead, just the opposite happened. One employee stepped forward to announce that it was simply an electrical failure, and nothing to worry about. Sales reps who had been showing things to customers on desktop systems simply moved over to the laptops, which were still running. Cashiers pulled out the old-style mechanical credit card machines, so that people could keep on buying stuff. People kept buying stuff in droves. It was almost as if the power hadn't even gone out. After awhile, it began to get uncomfortably hot due to the lack of air conditioning, so employees emerged from the back room with cases of bottled water and began passing them out. Everything was like clockwork. In fact, it was only when I finally left the store in search of dinner that I remembered that there was in fact no electricity in the area, because almost every storefront but the Apple Store had simply closed down for the day. So much for dinner.
Now, the people that Apple hires to work in its stores are undoubtedly smart people, but the automation with which the employees in that SoHo store sprung into action told me that they had been trained on exactly what to do in such a situation. How many retail chains train their employees, prior to opening day, what to do in case of a prolonged power outage? Apparently, Apple does. What were that odds that this situation would arise on the store's first day? One in a hundred? One in ten thousand? Doesn't matter, they had been prepared for it nonetheless.
Compare that to the employee working behind the counter of the Chick-Fil-A who had to try three three different size lids before identifying one that would fit on my large Coke, before giving my order to the wrong guy. If Apple had been running this particular fast food joint, there would have been specific training on which size lids go on which cups. Also, training on how to give the food and beverages to the customer who actually ordered them. Alright, so perhaps no amount of training could have made up for that last part. But you get the point.
When a member of the Windows-using public walks into an Apple Store with the vague notion of taking a look at the Macintosh as sorta kinda maybe being an option, the store is already up against the massive wall of imaginary reasons for not buying a Mac that most Windows users have had pounded into their heads over the years. There are already around 2.9 strikes against the Mac, even as it steps up to the plate. So there just isn't enough wiggle room for little things to go wrong that might convince the skeptical mall-goer to give up on his faint notion, turn around, and walk back out. You can't have the arbitrary things getting screwed up. The demo machines simply cannot be in non-working order, not even for one minute, lest the mall-goer fall victim to the myth that "Macs crash / Macs have problems." An employee can't afford to give an uninformed answer to a left-field question, lest the mall-goer think that the employee is trying to cover up some imaginary weakness of the platform. Metaphorically speaking, Apple Store employees have to reach for the right size lid the first time. Without even looking.
According to Apple, more than one hundred million people now live within fifteen miles of an Apple Store. As word continues to spread among the highly skeptical (and generally misinformed) Windows-using public that the Macintosh might be a viable and even preferable option for them, having an Apple Store nearby, in a highly-trafficked and highly-accessible area, is a good thing. And the fact that Apple Store employees are so prepared for whatever might get thrown their way? That's an even better thing.
I think I'll eat dinner at home tonight. If someone's going to screw up my order, I'd prefer that it be me.
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