After turning round the fortunes of Burberry, Angela Ahrendts is five years into reimagining Apple’s bricks-and-mortar presence. Vogue Business meets the American tech executive on the steps of Apple’s soon-to-be-unveiled Washington, DC, flagship.
At 506 stores around the world, Apple staff start their day with an app called Hello, which briefs them on the most important “need to knows” of the day, often featuring videos from Ahrendts and her team.
A second app, Loop, functions as an internal social network where staff can share learnings with each other. “Someone might be selling more phones than anybody else and we ask them to share that on a 20-second video on Loop,” Ahrendts explains. “We use auto-translate and everybody in the world can see what Tom in Regent Street is doing. It’s a huge unlock, just getting all the stores to talk to one another.”
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Apple sends a survey to everyone who attends one of its “Today at Apple” sessions. “In this data-driven world we need to define what ‘enriching lives’ means, and then we need to measure that,” Ahrendts says. “Did we inspire you to learn something new? Did we help to unlock your creativity?” The response rate is 96 per cent. “Since we put that out there, we now have hard data. It’s quite fascinating what customers are telling us.”
