The Apple Experience: Secrets to Building Insanely Great Customer Loyalty (7 page)

Where does the positive shopping experience start? Each team member must feel good about being part of the team—the “corporate tribe”—at Men’s Wearhouse. “We encourage employees to communicate directly to their managers—or go higher, if necessary—when fairness and respect are compromised.” It’s equally important to let employees make decisions they feel are in the best interest of the customer—in sports it’s the equivalent of a quarterback calling an “audible” when he believes it’s the right play to run even though it wasn’t the play the coach called. “Mistakes are opportunities for both mentoring and learning. Reducing fear draws out our employees’ best efforts and most positive attitudes.”

Fear inhibits leadership, destroys cultures, and ultimately leads to a poor customer experience. One study found that in a recession only half of employees in the United States took all their vacation time (in a country where the average vacation is only two weeks).
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When employees were asked why they didn’t take their vacation, many expressed the fear of becoming targets in the next round of layoffs. These “fearful” employees come to work tired, irritated, and uninspired because they haven’t had a chance to recharge or explore new ideas. Expecting these employees to provide an exceptional
customer service is like asking the cast of
Jersey Shore
to go one day without making fools of themselves. It’s not going to happen. Fear also leads to something even more damaging to creating a customer-centered culture. Scared employees are reluctant to speak up, and if they do not voice their opinions, it’s nearly impossible to offer feedback. Feedback, as you’ll learn in the next chapter, is a key ingredient in Apple’s secret sauce.

When Steve Jobs returned to rescue Apple in 1997, he didn’t have any new products to announce (the breakthroughs would begin the following year with the introduction of the iMac). Instead, Jobs motivated his team by creating a television ad—not for his customers, but for his employees. Jobs wrote the words to
The Crazy Ones
because he wanted to remind employees of Apple’s core values and beliefs. The words came from the bottom of Steve’s soul. During the celebration of Steve’s life on October 19, 2011, at the Apple campus, Tim Cook played a version of the ad that he himself had heard for the first time after Steve’s death. Richard Dreyfus was the actor who voiced the final television ad, but Cook played the version Jobs read in his own voice.

Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules and they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them, because they change things. They push the human race forward. While some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.
¹¹

Steve Jobs was fearless, and he hired employees who shared his attitude.

On Wednesday, October 19, 2011, Apple closed all of its retail locations for two hours so employees could attend a “Celebration of Steve’s Life” broadcast live from the Apple headquarters in Cupertino, California. Jonathan “Jony” Ive was one of the speakers. Jobs called Ive his “spiritual partner” at Apple. Both men loved design and would speak daily about creating products that were simple, elegant, and easy to use. As Apple’s head of design, Ive is largely responsible for designing some of the most innovative technology products on the planet—iPod, Macbook, iPhone, and iPad.

Ive was invited to say a few words at the memorial celebration. “Steve used to say to me—and he used to say it a lot—hey, Jony, here’s a dopey idea,”
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Ive told the audience. “And sometimes they were. Sometimes they were truly dreadful. But sometimes they took the air from the room and left us both completely silent: bold, crazy, magnificent ideas or quiet, simple ones which, in their subtlety, their detail, were truly profound.” Jobs loved the process of creativity and approached it with a “rare and wonderful reverence,” according to Ive. Jobs pitched “dopey” ideas, and he expected people to give him open, honest feedback. He could also be harsh with Ive, but he expected Ive to defend his ideas. Both men cherished the process and realized that innovation cannot flourish without the open exchange of ideas and feedback. But without fearlessness, the process breaks down.

In remembering Jobs, Ive said, “He better than anyone understood that while ideas ultimately could be so powerful, they begin as fragile, barely formed thoughts, so easily missed, so easily compromised, so easily squished.” Ive thrived for more than ten years under Jobs because he was fearless. He wasn’t a wallflower. Ive pitched ideas passionately even though he knew there would be a good chance Jobs might cut them down with a curt, harsh rejection. But he had the confidence to go toe-to-toe with Jobs.

A
pple does not like to hire arrogant techies who think they know it all, because as star employees will tell you, you can’t know everything. Just when you think you have it figured out, the demanding Apple customer will throw you a question, concern, or situation you simply haven’t prepared to address. The goal is not to impress customers with knowledge. The goal is to leave customers feeling special and to enrich their lives.

Apple looks for personality and for those who can handle “ambiguity.” If an employee has internalized the vision, knows the messaging, has engaged in fearless feedback, and trusts her team and her managers, she will be much more effective in dealing with unexpected questions, demands, and concerns. She will confidently make on-the-spot decisions for the good of the customer relationship.

Although Apple does not require that its managers read
Speed of Trust
by Stephen M. R. Covey, I’ve met several managers who are familiar with Covey’s thirteen behaviors of “high-trust leaders” and try to instill these behaviors in their teams. “The ability to establish, grow, extend, and restore trust with all stakeholders is the key leadership competency of the new, global economy,”
¹
writes Covey.

According to research cited in Covey’s book, only 51 percent of employees have trust and confidence in senior management, and only 36 percent believe their leaders act with honesty and integrity. A low-trust environment is a recipe for disaster. “Low trust causes friction, whether it is caused by unethical behavior or by ethical but incompetent behavior,”
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says Covey. “Low trust is the greatest cost in life and in organizations. Low trust creates hidden agendas, politics, interpersonal conflict, interdepartmental rivalries, win-lose thinking, defensive and protective communication. Low trust slows everything—every decision, every communication, and every relationship.”

Apple managers work hard at building and maintaining trust and, yes, restoring trust when it is lost. Managers strive to create a trusting environment where employees feel confident giving and receiving feedback and making their customers feel valued. Here are Covey’s thirteen trust behaviors with explanations and how they apply to the Apple experience. If you do not practice these behaviors as a leader in your organization, you might want to start. You will never develop an exceptional customer service strategy without developing trust.

Straight-talking managers let employees know where they stand, and they use simple, clear directions. Remember the question that hiring managers at Apple ask themselves: can this person go toe-to-toe with Steve Jobs? Jobs appreciated creative ideas. His first response might have been “It’s shit”; but after thinking about it, Jobs would come around to good ideas. Isaacson confirms that Jobs
allowed, even encouraged, people to challenge him. Although employees could challenge Jobs, he demanded clarity from the conversation. Obfuscation was a direct path to getting fired or getting your head bitten off. If a fearless Apple store employee believes it’s in the best interest of the company and its long-term relationship with a customer to replace a broken device that is past the warranty period, the employee might win the argument. But he had better have a good reason he can articulate simply and clearly to his manager.

Straight talk also applies to the interaction between employee and customer. If a customer wants to save $200 by purchasing a computer with less power, but the Apple salesperson knows—after asking probing questions—that the customer will regret the decision, the salesperson must speak clearly and bluntly. For example, a straight-talking salesperson might say something like, “I’m not on commission, and I’ll sell you that machine if it’s what you want. But I’m letting you know, based on what you’ve told me, that you’ll be back here to buy a new computer in two years. But if you spend $200 more today, you’ll have no problem for the next five years.”

A respectful manager genuinely cares about her employees and her customers. She respects the dignity of everyone on the team. Steve Jobs surrounded himself with a small group of A-players. But in a retail environment with 35,000 employees, the reality is that some B-players will also be on the sales floor. Managers must show kindness and respect to everyone on the team, even a player who is not living up to his potential. Employees have a way of raising their game when they are given praise and positive feedback and are treated with dignity.

Transparent managers are open and authentic. They disclose information if the information improves the customer experience, and they expect the same from their employees. For example, one
fearless Apple manager asked an employee how things were going on the floor. The employee responded, “Fine.” The manager asked the question again and added, “Be open and honest.” The manager got an earful, but it was feedback he needed to hear.

An employee also needs to trust a manager enough to be open. A specialist on a busy Apple floor might have to say, “I’m overwhelmed in this section right now.” The manager can replace that person in the section, move the person to another section, or give the person the right tools or resources needed to serve the customer better. But if the employee doesn’t trust the manager, the employee might stew about it and get frustrated, which could lead to deteriorating customer interactions. You will learn more about developing an effective feedback loop, which is a result of established trust, in
Chapter 5
.

Managers who right wrongs apologize quickly. They don’t let pride get in the way of doing the right thing. Everything in an Apple Store is about creating “promoters,” customers who are so happy they will recommend Apple products to their friends. Anything that gets in the way of that relationship must be addressed quickly. If a manager mistakenly criticizes an employee or, because he’s human, is having a bad day, it’s up to the manager to clear his head and apologize for his behavior. Righting a wrong quickly and authentically will restore trust among the team and even add a reservoir of trust that could benefit a supervisor in the future.

Loyal managers freely give credit to others and acknowledge the contribution of others. If they promise something, they follow through. They don’t break the trust. I spoke to the CEO of Griffin Hospital in Derby, Connecticut. Griffin is consistently ranked as one of the best places to work in the country. The hospital has committed itself to open and honest communications between management and staff. That commitment was put to the test in November 2001, when the first victim of what would become a deadly,
nationwide anthrax attack was brought to the hospital. The governor of the state called the CEO, Patrick Charmel, and urged him to keep it quiet. Charmel had scheduled a staff meeting where he had planned to disclose the information. Despite admonitions from politicians and even the FBI, Charmel told his staff. He trusted them to keep the news confidential until it was made public. Charmel’s staff honors his loyalty every day by maintaining the highest standards of customer satisfaction in the healthcare industry.