Editorial - Apple Concierge in Retail Stores: Think Security

by , 3:40 PM EDT, October 25th, 2007

Apple is about to alter the way customers enter many of their retail stores, according to a story at ifo AppleStore on Thursday. A concierge will soon greet entering customers and get them the help they require. It appears to be just good customer service, but there are other implications.

Currently, anyone can walk into an Apple retail store, unnoticed, wander around and leave. For some, that's annoying because no one has recognized their presence and sought to direct them to a salesperson. Worse, at any given moment, most Apple retail store sales people are engaged with a customer, fetching a product, or attending to some other task.

On the surface, the concierge position appears to solve just that problem very nicely.

However, this action by Apple is also in line with other markets. When you walk into any one of the high end hotel lobbies late at night, someone at the front desk will most likely hail and greet you. Take notice of you. When this reporter enters the local Best Buy, the security guys at the front door station always greet me and make eye contact.

They are friendly and observant.

Not only is a concierge a good path to customer service, but also has a beneficial side effect. It says, essentially, we've seen you come into our store. We recognize you. You are on notice that we may look at you again and observe your activities in the store.

The new Apple concierge service is written with great glamor and glee in the job postings, but it also will greatly assist with security in subtle ways. That's important, now that Apple is growing so fast. Many other companies have recognized this, and I'm surprised Apple took so long to implement it.