Seth Godin offers improvements for the Genius Bar

By Scott McNulty

Apple offers free instore tech support for all who wander into an Apple store. This has been a very popular service, and in fact popularity might be coming back to haunt Apple.
Increasingly we are hearing reports from people that are spending longer and longer amounts of time waiting to get a chance to talk to a genius.

Seth Godin, the marketing guru, has
visited an Apple Store and he thinks that Apple should do the following:

  • Having a problem with an iPod? Get an envelope, fill out a form online, and send your iPod off to a center to be
    looked at. No muss, no fuss.
  • A user friendly diagnostic machine for iPods that people could use to catch the common problems without seeing a
    Genius
  • Keeping people waiting busy by having them fill out a web form with information about their product in need
  • Don't treat all users the same. An iPod user is different than someone having trouble with a G5

They all make sense to me, though I am not sure how feasible they are. However, with all its faults the Genius Bar is still a brilliant idea, and one that Apple doesn't get enough credit for.

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