The Apple Experience: Secrets to Building Insanely Great Customer Loyalty

Copyright © 2012 by Carmine Gallo. All rights reserved. Manufactured in the United States of America. Except as permitted under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a data base or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

ISBN 978-0-07-179320-9
MHID        0-07-179320-8

e-book ISBN 978-0-07179321-6
e-book MHID        0-07179321-6

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The Apple Experience
is in no way authorized, prepared, approved, or endorsed by Apple Inc.

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

To Vanessa, Josephine, and Lela

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Enriching Lives

PART I
INSPIRING YOUR INTERNAL CUSTOMER

1
Dream Bigger

2
Hire for Smiles

3
Cultivate Fearless Employees

4
Build Trust

5
Foster a Feedback Loop

6
Develop Multitaskers

7
Empower Your Employees

PART II
SERVING YOUR EXTERNAL CUSTOMER

8
Follow Apple’s Five Steps of Service

9
Reset Your Customer’s Internal Clock

10
Sell the Benefit

11
Unleash Your Customer’s Inner Genius

12
Create Wow Moments

13
Rehearse the Script

14
Deliver a Consistent Experience

PART III
SETTING THE STAGE

15
Eliminate the Clutter

16
Pay Attention to Design Details

17
Design Multisensory Experiences

Conclusion: The Soul of Apple

Notes

Index

The Apple Experience
is a collaboration of colleagues, friends, editors, and readers around the world who have requested new content that helps them understand and apply the magic behind the Apple adventure.

It’s been a gratifying experience to work with McGraw-Hill Professional. Thanks to everyone at the company in editing, sales, marketing, public relations, and digital who are strong advocates of the book. Special thanks to Philip Ruppel, Mary Glenn, Ann Pryor, and Ruth Mannino for your guidance. I’d also like to offer a shout-out to my former editor, Gary Krebs, who shared the vision for a book that could lift the veil behind Apple’s award-winning customer culture.

Roger Williams takes special care to consider the long-term interests and careers of his clients. It’s an honor to call him my agent and friend.

Tom Neilssen and Les Tuerk at BrightSight Group are extraordinary speaking agents who successfully help me share my ideas with audiences around the world. I’m grateful for their partnership.

Publicity is a collaborative effort, and an author couldn’t have it better than to count on Mark Fortier and his team at Fortier Public Relations.

This book owes its accomplishment to my colleagues at Gallo Communications who dedicated hours of research and valuable insights: Carolyn Kilmer, Sarah Daniels, Tamara Medina, and Vanessa Gallo. Vanessa worked tirelessly to help organize ideas, edit, and format. Her background in psychology and customer service also proved to be invaluable.

Although my family is last in the acknowledgments, they come first in my life. They’re everything to me and bring me more joy each day. My wife, Vanessa, and girls, Josephine and Lela, are the light of my life. My mother, Giuseppina, and my in-laws, Ken and Patty, all deserve my gratitude, as do Tino, Donna, Francesco, and Nick. Finally, none of my success would be possible if hadn’t been for my late father, Francesco Gallo, who had the courage to seek a better life for his family. We owe him everything.

G
ary Allen traveled 3,200 miles, crossed ten states, and used 100 gallons of gas to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Apple Store in May 2011. Why would he do such a thing?

When the iPad was introduced, thousands of people camped out overnight at Apple Stores around the world to be among the first customers to buy it. Even Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak stood in line at a store in San Jose, California, more than
twelve hours
before the device went on sale! Couldn’t he have simply called his boyhood pal, Steve Jobs, and ask for an iPad to be delivered to his home?

Comedian Mark Malkoff brought a goat into an Apple Store—yes, a real goat—posted the video on YouTube and received nearly one million views.
¹
He also decided to test the patience of Apple employees by ordering pizza and having it delivered to him at an Apple location, visiting stores dressed as Darth Vader, and hiring a trumpet player to serenade him and his wife
in an actual store
. Why didn’t Apple Store managers kick him out? The answers to these questions will help you create a one-of-a-kind experience for your customers that
will move your brand forward and help you crush your competitors. But to really understand the answers, we have to turn to a higher source.

One of the most intense religious experiences of my life happened when I was a graduate student of journalism at Northwestern University. One Sunday a group of us decided to attend a Baptist church in downtown Chicago. Keep in mind that as a Catholic boy from California this was my first “immersive” experience outside of a Catholic mass. You could imagine how puzzled I must have been to see nurses standing alongside the walls. Once women started fanning themselves and fainting during the service, I knew why the nurses had been stationed there! When I saw the twenty-member gospel choir starting to rock out to the song “I’m Going with Jesus” and the preacher running full speed around the perimeter of the church with his arms in the air, I realized this would be unlike anything I ever experienced at my church. Those churchgoers were truly “inspired”—infused with the spirit.

Many Apple customers are also infused with the spirit—the Apple spirit. In 2011 researchers in the United Kingdom discovered that Apple actually triggers the same areas of the brain that light up during intensely religious experiences. The neuroscientists used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technology to discover that, for Apple fans, seeing images of Apple products actually lit up the same parts of the brain as images of a deity do for religious people. If you’ve seen photos or videos of customers whipped up in a sort of “evangelical frenzy” at Apple Store openings, now you understand why.

Oakland, California, resident Gary Allen is one of the faithful. In May 2011, Allen marked the tenth anniversary of the Apple Store by traveling thousands of miles to visit the first store in Tysons Corner, Virginia. He didn’t even fly. He rented a Toyota Yaris and drove for five days. Allen began his trip on Saturday, May 14, headed along I-80 to Denver and through Kansas, Missouri, Pennsylvania, and into Virginia. Now get this. Allen didn’t even know how
Apple would celebrate the anniversary. He just knew how
he
would celebrate—by making a pilgrimage to the place where it all began.

After Allen’s final long night of driving and getting just four hours of sleep, Allen arrived on the sixth day of his journey at 9:40 a.m. No special event had been scheduled. No reporters were present, and no banners unfurled. But since Allen had been blogging about his journey, the Apple employees knew about his arrival, gave him a tour of the store, and even treated him to cake. Allen was filled with the Apple spirit. For Allen, visiting an Apple Store is a religious experience. Religion gives meaning to people’s lives, and for millions of Apple customers and thousands of employees, the brand gives them a sense of meaning, providing deeply emotional experiences that improve their lives.

One early morning I awoke to find a puddle of water at the base of our refrigerator. It had stopped working overnight, and the freezer’s ice had completely melted, not to mention the ice cream and other products. In my attempt to be a good husband, I decided to troubleshoot before my wife and kids woke up. I called the Sears customer service number placed on the inside of the unit, peaceful in the knowledge that all would be well soon.

The Sears phone tree took me through a menu of options, but I was still relatively calm until an automated voice informed me that the next available day for repair would be “Thursday,” a full week from the time I was calling. A small panic began to set in. Finally I reached a live human being, and my panic began to subside until he put me on hold… and that’s when my peace was shattered for good. My wife walked in as I was on hold and asked who I was on the phone with.