Microsoft has announced it is closing all of its Microsoft Store physical locations. Those retail employees will, according to the press release, help the company from the brand’s corporate facilities and remotely providing sales, training, and support. Microsoft will also be reimagining spaces that serve customers, including, mentioned in the press release, operating Microsoft Experience Centers in London, New York City, Sydney, and Redmond campus locations. The closure of these physical Microsoft Store locations will also result in a pre-tax charge of approximately $450 million, or $0.05 per share, which was recorded in the quarter ending June 30, 2020.
“Our sales have grown online as our product portfolio has evolved to largely digital offerings, and our talented team has proven success serving customers beyond any physical location,” said Microsoft Corporate Vice President David Porter in a Microsoft press release. “We are grateful to our Microsoft Store customers and we look forward to continuing to serve them online and with our retail sales team at Microsoft corporate locations.”
According to the above quote and press release, the retail employees will help serve consumers, small-business, education, and enterprise customers, while building a pipeline of talent with transferable skills.”
“We deliberately built teams with unique backgrounds and skills that could serve customers from anywhere. The evolution of our workforce ensured we could continue to serve customers of all sizes when they needed us most, working remotely these last months,” said Porter in the same news release. “Speaking over 120 languages, their diversity reflects the many communities we serve. Our commitment to growing and developing careers from this talent pool is stronger than ever.”
According to the press release, since the physical stores closed in March due to the pandemic, those working in retail have been helping small businesses and education customers digitally transform, trained thousands of enterprise and education customers on remote work and learning software, and then helped customers with support calls. It has hosted more than 14,000 online workshops and summer camps as well as 3,000 virtual graduations.
“It is a new day for how Microsoft Store team members will serve all customers,” said Porter also in the Microsoft press release. “We are energized about the opportunity to innovate in how we engage with all customers, maximize our talent for greatest impact, and most importantly help our valued customers achieve more.”