Genius Training Student Workbook

The Genius Training Student Workbook is Apple's employee training manual for Apple Store tech-support employees, called Geniuses.^[1] The manual features various marketing and manipulation techniques revolving around the end goal of selling merchandise to every prospective customer that enters an Apple Store. One of the basic tenets taught to the employees in training is that “Everyone in the Apple Store is in the business of selling”.^[2]

The basic selling strategy is summed up with a mnemonic device: Approach, Probe, Present, Listen, End. When customers have concerns, the prescribed response in the manual is the "Three Fs:" Feel, Felt, and Found technique.^[3] Although employees who are not in the Genius role don't receive this manual or go through this training, every Genius must attend a two-week recruit training that mandates programs as diverse as “Using Diagnostic Services” and “The Power of Empathy.”^[2] Geniuses also have a list of words that the manual clearly stipulates as banned; words such as "bomb", "crash" and "hang" must be substituted by "does not respond" or "unexpectedly quits".^[4] The manual also teaches employees to read emotional cues such as drumming on a table or placing a palm on the back of the neck that might mean a customer is bored or frustrated, respectively.^[5]

The manual was a well-kept secret, until a copy leaked in August 2012 and ended in the hands of Gizmodo's senior staff writer Sam Biddle, who commented: "It’s a penetrating look inside Apple: psychological mastery, banned words, roleplaying—you’ve never seen anything like it."^[6] A Christian Science Monitor article connected the manual's contents to the idea of the "reality distortion field", a term for Apple's effectiveness at charming customers.^[7]

References

1. Biddle, Sam. "How To Be a Genius: This Is Apple’s Secret Employee Training Manual". Gizmodo.com. Retrieved 31 August 2012.
2. Lee, Anita. "Apple’s Secret Employee Training Manual Revealed". Mashable.com. Retrieved 31 August 2012.
3. Lee, Adriana. "Apple Genius Training Manual Leaked, Reveals Manipulation Tactics". TechnoBuffalo.com. Retrieved 31 August 2012.
4. "Unearthed: Apple’s secret employee manual reveals sales tactics and prohibited words". Macworld Australia. Retrieved 31 August 2012.
5. Ugwu, Reggie. "Banned Words And Managed Emotions: Leaked Manual Spills Apple Genius Secrets". Complex.com. Retrieved 31 August 2012.
6. Gallo, Carmine. "Apple's Secret Employee Training Manual Reinvents Customer Service in Seven Ways". Forbes. Retrieved 31 August 2012.
7. Ward-Bailey, Jeff. "How Apple Geniuses get inside our heads". Christian Science Monitor. Retrieved 30 November 2013.