Gizmodo Goes Hands-On With Apple’s Secret Genius Training Manual

Early today, we published a report that revealed over 90% of Apple’s customers are satisfied with the Genius Bar’s phenomenal work. Now, folks over at Gizmodo appear to have gotten their hands on a copy of Apple’s secret Genius Training Manual claiming that “you’ve never seen anything like it”.

According to Gizmodo, the manual gives a peek inside Apple’s “psychological mastery” with all kinds of Apple Dos and Don’ts, down to specific words you’re not allowed to use. It includes an overview of the 2 week training new Geniuses go through, along with detailed information on how to handle customer service issues in various situations.

“The manual could easily serve as the Humanity 101 textbook for a robot university, but at Apple, it’s an exhaustive manual to understanding customers and making them happy. Sales, it turns out, take a backseat to good vibes—almost the entire volume is dedicated to empathizing, consoling, cheering up, and correcting various Genius Bar confrontations. The assumption, it’d seem, is that a happy customer is a customer who will buy things. And no matter how much the Apple Store comes off as some kind of smiling likeminded computer commune, it’s still a store above all—just one that puts an enormous amount of effort behind getting inside your head”.

The source details each chapter in the manual going though its pages, from training the Geniuses on how to build the perfect customers relationship to understanding each customer’s emotions. It even highlights Apple’s “banned words” along with the preferred terms that should be used to describe certain issues.

The manual also presents different roleplaying scenarios for each trainee and a partner to work out. For instance, when the customer is mistaken or has bad information, Geniuses are taught to use the Three Fs: Feel, Felt, and Found.

For example:

Customer: This Mac is just too expensive.
Genius: I can see how you’d feel this way. I felt the price was a little high, but I foundit’s a real value because of all the built-in software and capabilities.

There’s seemingly nothing controversial in the book, according to Gizmodo’s account of the manual. Head over to the original article to find out exactly what Apple’s Geniuses learn before talking to you.