Il Genius Bar

DENTRO I NEGOZI che vendono solo Mac e iPod, gli AppleStore (102, tre in Giappone, uno in Gran Bretagna e tutti gli altri negli Usa) c'è, secondo il New York Times, una delle più grandi anomalie della nostra epoca: il Genius Bar. Dove dipendenti di Apple risolvono i problemi dei clienti, gratuitamente. Lo scopo del loro creatore, Ron Johnson vicepresidente responsabile del settore retail di Apple, è quello di offrire lo stesso tipo di servizio dei grandi alberghi. L'esperienza di acquisto, tutta giocata intorno al prodotto, si arricchisce di una nuova dimensione.

immagine rubata da questo articolo di Macity, che è sullo stesso argomento

The experience of Cecilia Joyce, a marathon runner who claims to be unable to live without her iPod, is a recent case in point. Ms. Joyce's iPod is packed with music like Boy George's rendition of "The Girl From Ipanema," which inspires her to run longer, sometimes even faster.

When her iPod's battery stopped holding a charge, Ms. Joyce went straight to the Genius Bar in San Francisco. She apologized to Mr. Marcantonio for having bought the device at a different Apple Store. Unfazed by this mundane detail, and without further ado, he gave Ms. Joyce a new iPod.

Were it not for the Genius Bar, Ms. Joyce might have gone an untenable two weeks without a device, the amount of time it could have taken to send it to be repaired or replaced.

Soon after the elated Ms. Joyce left, Mr. Marcantonio glanced down at his computer to see what troubled device was coming next. "Oh, it's an iPod Shuffle - this is going to be interesting," he said, delighted by his first encounter with the tiny new flash-based iPod.

Mr. Marcantonio picked up the white plastic stick and gave its miniature controls a quick poke.

Unlike the clerk in the Monty Python dead parrot skit, who refuses to concede that the bird he sold to a customer was in fact deceased, Mr. Marcantonio knows a dead iPod Shuffle when he sees one. The solution: give the customer a new one.