I’ve never been to an Apple Store at opening time (10:00 AM here). Here are some observations:
(1) I arrived around 9:45 and there were already 15 or so people waiting outside. I’d never seen this before, but first one Apple employee came out with an iPad and started putting people in various queues, telling them where to go when the glass doors opened, etc. Then a second employee came out five minutes before opening and helped sort people. Pretty cool in my opinion.
(2) Prior to opening, the employees were all gathered around inside participating in some sort of pep session. There was a guy (I am assuming) dressed up as a dog. Seemed to look like a celebration of some sort. When I finally entered the store I asked the salesman and he said it was some sort of back to school pep talk that Apple does.
(3) Do they always give you a standing ovation when you walk in when the store opens? lol They were clapping and cheering for a good three minutes while people walked in.
(4) Lots of grey haired people like me in the store. They revamped the training sessions so that might explain why. Or maybe the time of day? Do Apple Stores trend younger in the evening, hehe?
Overall, was pretty impressed with the store opening routine. I’ve visited Apple Stores 100s of times, but never at opening.
I don’t know about the rest of the experience, but the morning pep session is pretty common in retail. If you go early morning to a Target or a Walmart (obviously not one of the 24hr ones) you can see similar rah-rah gatherings. They usually cover a daily safety message, talk about employee “wins” for the previous day, and go over any special sales or changes to the store that might confuse customers. It’s a chance for the manager/team lead to give out info and get people motivated before they all split and head out all over the store.
The employees seemed very enthusiastic at 10:00 AM. Much more than a typical store (looking at you Best Buy). Not sure if it was cultish, but was very different than what I’ve experienced entering a store at opening. My only real complaint is that with all of the clapping and cheering going on, was hard to tell the sales person why I was there.
The sales people must also be trained to ask questions while you wait for your order to be brought from the back. I’ve had multiple chats about what I teach, where I work, how I like Apple products, etc. One interesting discussion was with an associate that lived near my home town and said that the region rebounded in the 90s. I looked it up and he was correct.
I told the associate today that I was tired of having to maintain a Windows PC for gaming, so shoot that complaint up to Tim. I complained about the iPad Pro being limited to 256GB and voila we now have 512GB. I expect we’ll have iMac gaming computers soon!
Funny I told the associate that the only Apple products I don’t really like are the Beats. I received a free pair of Solo3’s when I purchased a MacBook and they were so bad that I gave them to my daughter (who seems to care more about the label than the sound).
My least favorite sort of people are probably overly enthusiastic retail store managers who make their employees pretend to give a shit that Sally got her per-transaction total up .04% yesterday and oh boy gang today we’ve got a secret shopper!
