If you absolutely need to get your hands on a Google device right away, you can get it delivered and set up within three hours, thanks to a Silicon Valley startup founded by a familiar name.
Google has become the latest company to team up with Enjoy, whose workers can bring the Pixel 3 phone to eager customers when it becomes available next Thursday. Other devices Google currently offers are available for setup and delivery now in the Bay Area.
Enjoy is a Menlo Park startup that brings a store, complete with setup services, to its customers. It already offers same-day delivery of AT&T devices — including Apple’s iPhones — plus Sonos and Magic Leap. It also offers delivery of British Telecom devices in the U.K. Adding Google to that mix could be a big deal.
“We couldn’t be more excited,” Enjoy CEO Ron Johnson said in an interview Thursday. Google’s “big vision” of trying to build products for the smart home is in line with what Enjoy offers, he said. When they deliver products, Enjoy’s experts can make sure customers know how and whether they work with related technology in their homes.
Johnson knows a little something about selling tech devices. He was the senior vice president responsible for turning Apple Stores into an experience. After he left Apple, he did a stint as CEO of JC Penney for a couple of years until his firing in 2013. Then he started Enjoy in 2014, and the service launched in 2015.
Enjoy’s partnership with Google is starting off only in the Bay Area — one of the startup’s largest markets — first.
“When we opened Apple Stores, we opened just two: one in Virginia and one in Los Angeles,” Johnson said. Similarly, he added, “we want to learn how to do this in the best way we can.”
Enjoy’s experts are full-time employees who receive training from the companies whose products they are delivering and setting up. Johnson said the company has 1,200 employees in the United States and the United Kingdom, a majority of whom are experts. In the United States, Enjoy is now in 48 metropolitan areas.
How Enjoy’s service works: Customers of AT&T, Sonos, Magic Leap and now Google go to those companies’ online stores and place their orders. At checkout, they choose the Enjoy option: At the Google Store, they would pick “in person delivery with expert setup.” Then they would choose a delivery date and time — a two-hour window. They can have the Enjoy experts come to their homes, or deliver to their offices or a coffee shop. The experts can stay for as little as a few minutes to an hour, with the average being about half an hour, Johnson said.
“Everyone has their own needs,” Johnson said, noting that in some families, different members will have varied uses for the devices. “The experts can spend as much time as the customers need.”
Enjoy’s services will always be free to customers, he said. Enjoy makes money from its partnerships with the companies.
For Google, Enjoy “inventing mobile retail,” as Johnson puts it, may be what it needs to get its hardware into even more hands. The tech giant has no physical stores — only some popup stores here and there — where people can ask questions about its products. Now they can buy them and know they can get help if they choose to use Enjoy.
“This offering is an easy and convenient way we’re helping customers experience Made by Google products,” said Ana Corrales, vice president of Global Operations and Google Store, on Thursday.
