The secret’s out. Apple’s Genius Bar techies are psychological ninjas, programmed to max out your credit card. At least, that was some people’s reaction when Apple’s ‘Genius Training Student Workbook’ was leaked last week.
Far from being a handbook of creepy cultish mind tricks, the guide demonstrates Apple’s shrewd grasp of the science behind selling. For all the technology and seamless user experience in the world, people still buy from people.
So what are the secrets?
1) Be empathetic. According to Sam Biddle at Gizmodo, “the term ‘empathy’ is repeated ad nauseum in the Genius manual”. Apple’s ‘Feel, Felt, Found’ approach recommends that Geniuses acknowledge the customer’s emotion (‘I can see why you’d feel that way’), link it to their own feelings (‘I too felt that the price was a little high’) and then turn it around with their personal experience (‘I found it’s real value because of all the built-in software’).
The science: Peter Salovey and John Mayer first coined the term Emotional Intelligence in 1990, describing it as ‘the ability to monitor one’s own and other’s feelings and emotions’. Daniel Goleman expanded and popularised the theory, maintaining that EI is a better predictor of workplace success than IQ. There’s plenty of research to back this up: for example, Professor Richard Boyatzis found that partners in a multinational consulting firm who scored above the median on 9 or more EI competencies delivered $1.2 million more profit from their accounts than other partners.
2) Lead the customer. Although ‘empathising, consoling and cheering up’ are core messages, Geniuses are not passive. The guide includes mantras like ‘we guide every interaction’, ‘we recommend solutions’ and ‘we help them discover’. Through the handy mnemonic ‘APPLE’ (Approach, Probe, Present, Listen, End), employees lead customers to a decision that they believe is all their own. Hardly groundbreaking, but the devil is in the detail; in Present, Geniuses are told to offer a variety of options for customers to choose from.
The science: When it comes to choice, three is the magic number. Researchers at the University of Minnesota used brain scans to show that it’s easier to make a choice between three products than it is to choose between two. It’s what supermarkets have known for ages – offering a ‘premium’ range and a ‘value’ range will increase sales of the home brand range. But too much choice overwhelms and overloads, making it harder to make a decision at all.
3) Watch your language. Apple customers approaching the Genius bar don’t have computers that ‘crash’, phones with ‘bugs’ or laptops that get ‘hot’. Their computer ‘does not respond’, their iPhone has an ‘issue’ or ‘condition’, and the laptop is, at most, ‘warm’. The language of a Genius is non-negotiable.
The science: Our language taps into our emotions; the word ‘home’ evokes a different feeling than ‘house’; ‘Nazi’ feels more shocking than ‘German soldier’. Experiments like the emotional Stroop test suggest that emotive words affect not just our feelings but our reaction times – when asked to read out the colour a word is written in, we’re faster for neutral words (‘clock’) than for emotional ones (‘war’). Highly emotive words overwhelm our cognitive functions and make us less able to do things like make decisions. Hence why, when it comes to increasing sales, words like ‘problem’ are verboten.
(Image credit: Getty Images via @daylife)
4) Interpret body language. The Genius guide includes a chapter on decoding body language; frustrated customers clench their fists and rub the back of their neck, bored customers drum the table or put their head in their hand, whereas those who sit on the edge of their seat with an unbuttoned coat are cooperative.
The science: Counter-intuitively, there’s little empirical evidence to support the idea that our body language signals our emotions. Despite the widely quoted (and misleading) ‘over 90% of communication is non-verbal’ statistic, a customer’s crossed arms might actually mean they’re cold, not disinterested. But this tactic is a great example of Apple encouraging its staff to pay attention. And attention pays. In a study of 3,000 bank customers, when the front line staff member was attentive, more than 85% of customers bought or invested more. In a separate study by far the greatest reason customers gave for leaving was because a frontline employee was indifferent.
5) Give fearless feedback. Geniuses are told to engage in ‘open dialogue every day’ with ‘positive intent’. They’re encouraged to listen out to their colleagues’ interactions and give them a friendly piece of advice if they spot something going wrong.
(Image credit: Getty Images via @daylife)
The science: While the language in the guide might not ring true (one example conversation reads “Thanks for listening to the feedback. In the future, please make sure to signal me if you need help…”), a culture of frequent, honest feedback is one that raises performance. In one study with 223 customer service operators, introducing self-managed teams, where employees shared knowledge, workarounds and tips for handling customers, resulted in a 9.3% increase in service and sales performance, per employee.
Whether you see these tactics as sneaky scams or simply the smart basis of sales, there’s no denying that they work: last month on Twitter it was announced that Apple’s market capitalization had exceeded that of Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Amazon – combined.
But whether they work for the Geniuses themselves is another story. Psychologists describe the need to constantly regulate your emotions at work as ‘emotional labour’. The evidence suggests that high emotional labour depletes our self-control and leads to low job satisfaction and even burnout. So while stipulating that Geniuses are constantly cheerful and empathetic might be good for Apple’s bottom line, perhaps it’s no wonder that Gizmodo has also published tales of Apple employees hosting iPhone trashing parties, swapping computers for booze, deliberately wiping ‘whiny’ customers’ hard drives and swiping thousands of dollars’ worth of stock. These are, of course, issues that almost all retail businesses face from time to time.
Many organisations examine the psychology behind their sales. And, whilst they’re at it, the smartest businesses will investigate the art of employee engagement at the same time.
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