Couple of posts that I caught over the weekend that made me go hmmmmm:
She Said: Heather Hamilton at Microsoft has a great post over at One Louder about the insanity of style over service at the Apple retail store:
"Apple does a lot of things right and I really respect their design discipline and marketing. Their ability to build a loyal following is impressive, even if that following has cartoon-style swirly eyeballs and walks all zombie-like to the beat
of anything that Steve Jobs says. Ah, I joke, fanboys. I absolutely appreciated my iPod for many of the years I owned one and before I got a Zune. And there's a place for both in the market. Anyhoo.
I was in an Apple store to buy a gift card for my friends' kid. And for some reason I cannot even begin to fathom, all of the Apple employees were on the sales floor doing all of their business. So the person that wanted to buy a gift card (me) had to wait in the same line as the people that had questions...lots of questions. The only employee that wasn't four deep behind a line of customers/inquisitors was the gal at the front who was, like, greeting people. And when I asked her who could help me (ring up a freaking gift card), she sent me back to the line because she could totally not help me. Not at all. Because she was awesome at "Hi, welcome to the Apple store," and she was also awesome at "How can *they* help you? Because I'm not a *genius*."
He Said (that's me):OMG. I know there are tons of apple fanboys out there, but let's face it, it's nearly impossible to get service in a quick fashion on a transactional item in an Apple retail store. All Heather wanted was a gift card - she either had to wait for one of the roamers to get free from a rambling 30 minute discussion or... wait for it...set up an appointment.
My wife has a great story on this. iPod stops working. Dead. She takes it in to the Apple store (her first time in the store). Goes to to the same person Heather's writing about and says, "hey, this is dead, I just want to drop it off to have one of your folks look at it. Greeter: "You'll need to make an appointment for that. My wife: "No, I'm cool with just dropping it off". Greeter: "We don't work like that, you have to make an appointment for that". My wife: When's the next available appointment?" Greeter: "Tomorrow at 5:30 pm" (thus a return trip to the store at peak traffic time).
Picture smoke coming from my wife's ears. Which is why there will always be a non-Apple alternative in every market there are in.
She said: HR Maven on HR pros not caring or having time to be bothered by social media:
"Back to my (local SHRM)chapter meeting. I inquired about speakers for the year. Great topics on the calendar -employee relations, benefits, COBRA. Good stuff. But no one is scheduled to talk about SoMe this year. In fact the person putting together the agenda actually said that she didn't have time to learn this stuff. I recounted a story of a candidate I interviewed for a job. I asked her if she needed a copy of the job description. Her response? No, I have a copy on my phone."
Seems to me that any HR pro that declines to learn anything about SoMe will invariably work in those companies that do not embrace technology except for at the most basic levels. (yes, they are still out there)
And neither these HR's nor their companies will be able to survive in the 21st century.
I'd also guess that those same pro's do not have the strategic vision necessary to help lead their companies in this rough and tumble business environment.
But they'd make great admin clerks.
Posted by: Tammy Colson | March 15, 2010 at 09:06 AM
That is one heck of a good comment. Awesome.
Posted by: Rj_morris | March 15, 2010 at 03:54 PM