Re: AUGD: Apple store policies toward Apple User Groups
Re: AUGD: Apple store policies toward Apple User Groups
- Subject: Re: AUGD: Apple store policies toward Apple User Groups
- From: Dave G <email@hidden>
- Date: Tue, 24 Mar 2009 23:27:50 -0500
At one point, Genuises were allowed to hand out business cards for a
group I was involved in. Had a good sitdown with a "keyholder" there
and eventually the store manager and we were told User Group Goals are
incompatible with the Apple Retail Store and here were some the
reasons.
1) The Free help cuts down on OnetoOne sessions. These are very
important numbers for a store to meet. They want people to go to
OnetoOne sessions, not get questions answered for free. Same for the
AppleCare attach rate. Why get phone support for 3 years when you can
just go to a User Group meeting.
2) The advice given at group meetings may not be the "party line"
given by Apple. Certain solutions are approved, certain aren't. They
don't want people to come in the store and say "The president of the
user group told me your Genius was wrong)
3) Membership in User Groups come with discounts. Apple Retail
stores sell products and driving sales from the store to the User
Groups discounts is "suicidal." Same goes for giveaways. Some groups
give away great stuff....stuff that people might have been considering
buying in the Apple store. I know when Microsoft donated a copy of
Office that really irked the store.
4) Space is at a premium. Having people in the store that aren't
going to buy anything turns away potential customers. This didn't
apply in our case, but he mentioned it from other stores.
5) Phone calls. The store gets phone calls about the meeting and
answering questions about User Groups takes time away from store
guests--again at other stores not his.
Basically he thought that most store's see User Groups as antiquated
relics from Apple's earlier days, when the logo was a rainbow and
BBS's were all the rage. TThe retail store serves as the primary
mouthpiece for Apple to it's public. It's the same reason for the
pullout of Macworld: Apple wants to interact directly with it's
customers and user groups and trade shows are middlemen in that
relationship
The guy wasn't rude or anything about it, in fact he was REALLY nice
and apologetic. He just said he has store sales goals and the User
Group, albeit in a small way, gets in the way of those goals and he's
got to look out for his stores and, ultimately, Apple's best interest.
I do have friends that work in the stores. Apple is squeezing the
stores abit harder so your store is probably feeling that pinch.
For the record, this was his opinion and he was saying this off the
record not in the store, so I can't tell you the store or group. He
also moved on to "bigger and better" things at Apple, so I'm assuming
he was on target with his opinion.
On Tue, Mar 24, 2009 at 8:51 PM, Russ Conte <email@hidden> wrote:
> Hi everyone,
>
> Greetings from Chicago! I hope my note finds everyone well.
>
> We've been meeting for some five years at the North Michigan Apple Store. We
> are a very typical group, bringing in speakers, holding raffles, giving away
> t-shirts, SIGS, and all the rest. You know how this goes :)
>
> What are your arrangements with the Apple store, if you meet in one? Have
> there been any changes with user groups that meet in Apple stores? The
> reason we are asking is that we have recently been approached by three
> managers, separately, at different times within the last few months about
> accepting money for memberships, or any other financial transactions while
> we are in the store, and that we are forbidden from doing these while we are
> in the store. One of the managers questioned our holding raffles, telling us
> we could not have raffles exclusively for our members. We are wondering if
> this is consistent across all Apple stores. We are most interested in the
> responses.
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Russ Conte
> President, Chicago Apple Users Group
> www.chicagoaplle.org
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