Perhaps the students were treated better at the Apple store because they were buying 15 macbooks. Surely they didn't spend that much money at all the other mall stores.
Apple salespeople are not paid on commission, and since the guy was told exactly what the students were buying and that they already had the money distributed to them on gift cards, he knew he couldn't upsell them on a warranty or in-store training. Selling a baseline macbook is easy, people line up to buy them. It is the upselling that determines an employee's performance. So I don't think it had any bearing on this guy's behavior.
This matters a lot, consistent negative reviews are one of the few things that can get you fired.
- AppleCare %- This is the extended warranty apple offers. This is emphasized pretty hard, managers frequently cite studies that show higher satisfaction for people who buy warranties etc. The official target for this is 50%, but getting over 20% puts you in the top tier, and anything below 10% gets you negative attention. Store average was around 13-17%. Its pretty rare you actually changes someone's mind on buying it, most people come in decided.
- 1 to 1 % - this is % of computers you sell with one to one, which is a year of as-many-as-you-want hour longs training sessions on basic computer stuff. A 6% 1 to 1 rate was outstanding and over 10% was unheard of, but official corporate expectation was 25%
- Sales $
- personal setup % - how many people you can get to sit with an apple employee and be walked through setup of iDevice.
While I was at Apple, they were pretty good about just letting you do whatever you felt was best for the customer. There's was never any pressure to force a sale, and you were encouraged to talk to customers for as long as they wanted.
source: I worked at 5th ave, Apple's busiest US retail store for 6 months in 2011-2012. The store gets over 50% international customers (who often can't use the warranties/upsells in their home countries) so %ages may be drastically different from other stores.
However, on a larger scale, I would tend to agree that stores that sell expensive things hire better salesmen.
In the low end/mall type environment, look at In-N-Out or Chick-Fil-A vs. a badly-run Arby's franchise. Essentially the same product, but different culture. (McDonald's is even more interesting; they have great systems and generally hire younger or less experienced and more short-term workers, but don't seem to be as happy as the other places. McDonald's does do a great job of hiring disabled people, though -- and for a McDonald's job, a developmentally disabled person who is motivated and happy and has worked there 5 years is probably going to be a far better employee than a normal high schooler who is bitter about having to work.)
Generally "better" stores have higher margins, but not always higher prices -- Trader Joe's and Whole Foods both beat Safeway as a place to work.
If I lived in Iowa, I'd love to work for a place like Brownell's or in Colorado, Magpul, even for a lower wage than a company with less-good internal culture.
Also if I was a student, knowing this experiment wouldn't affect my grades at all, I'd be rebelling against this forced lie and talking out loud "accidentally".