After reading the article that posted on asymco.com, Aug 17, an article mainly discussing the ratio of visitors per employee in Apple store. Maybe we can diagnosis this phenomenon in several ways.
The ratio of visitors per employee is declining
The author of the article shows us a two-axis graph which presents a relationship between visitors and apple store employees, which may be a solid indicator to predict the service quality for customers and the human resource effectiveness.
And the result is, which demonstrates that the ratio is relatively steady, but declining. So there comes two possible problems:
1.Apple store is overstaffed
The ratio of visitors per employee is about 3.5 in 2007, but now, the number is down to about 2.5 in 2011. What can the information tell us about ? Maybe Apple has hired too many employees to sustain the service quality in Apple store. And as you know, quality is always about fit, not numbers. When visitors go to Apple store to explore the magical machines, it’s really weird to see that the number of Apple Genius is more than customers in this kind of situation. And to the executives of Apple, business is always about the consideration of the tradeoffs between quality and cost.
2.People still love Apple, but not as crazy as before
The second possible problem is the number of fanboys/fangirls is decreasing. To talk about fanboys, which reminds me the recent promotion videos released in the London Olympics 2012. Obviously, compare to the classic “Think Difference” and “Mac and PC” series ads, there’s some negative public comments on feedback. And these ads may lower the ratio values.
Why happens?
How about the ads broadcasted recently?
What is your opinions about it?
iOS Programming Digest 