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Inside the lonely, cranky Microsoft Store on iPhone 5 launch day
venturebeat.com
I did have a similar experience as the individual in question - I was kind of used to the very gregarious Apple employees, so I was a bit taken aback when I asked if they had any Lumias (I hadn't been able to find them that quickly), and, instead of being lead to it like a small child (as I'm used to at the competition) - I got a bit of a gruff, "They're in the phone section." - this, despite the fact, we were standing beside a table full of phones, none of which were the Lumia. :-)
The stores are quite nice, beautiful even, but the Stanford Shopping Center employees should take some Apple training.
Considering their margins are less I'm thinking they don't spend as much money employing customer facing people.
Maybe the author didn't deal with the MS Store manager very tactfully, or maybe that manager was having a bad day, or maybe he got lucky with the Apple Store employee; who knows.
The only reason the Microsoft Store "...[is] not even close to as effective to what Apple has built" is because of brand and hype. But I have a feeling this is going to shift over time. It won't happen overnight, it'll be gradual, but it will happen.
Most people outside the HN bubble actually like and admire Microsoft because it's what they know ---- and most importantly, they don't care about computing enough to know the differences between things, so they go with the comfortable and familiar. Apple's premium pricing keeps a lot of people away from the Mac (not that Apple needs to care -- their business model is fantastic for their bottom line). So, for most people -- the Android crowd that uses MSFT at work -- Microsoft stores could become something meaningful in the overall landscape.
Then again, since most of the people I'm talking about just don't care that much...when the time comes to buy that new laptop they might not ever make it to the store when the (already familiar and comfortable) Best Buy / Costco / Sam's / Walmart / Dell / Amazon buying experience will do just fine.
So the Microsoft store culture is not like the Apple store culture. Well that's surprising. Considering their margins are less I'm thinking they don't spend as much money employing customer facing people.
Not a consumer electronics example but a great example of just how big a difference employees who are both excited and knowledgeable about the products they sell is Marbles, the Brain Store. I always felt that the people working there would still be there even if they weren't paid.