Apple Store Experiences

Your closet has an Apple store?

To be fair, you were misinformed. You always need an appointment.

Walked in with a mid 2010 MBP,
Snapped Hinge, Missing Keys, Smashed trackpad, and a charger with no plug on the end, the guy behind the genius bar replaced the charger and fixed the whole macbook for nothing, ~£350 of repairs.
iPhone 4, under warranty, with a broken noise cancelling mic, broken vibrator, and a camera with horrendouc blue tint, (none of these being my fault), he replaced the phone for free!

In my experience, it depends on how busy they are. I was once told "you need an appointment, that's the policy, use this computer here, you can get one for 1:15." It was 1:10 at the time.

(Other than that, to answer the original question: I've had many good experiences with Apple stores, but most of them have little to do with the real topic of this thread.)

Loved 4 of my 5 visits - the other one they messed up on - they made it right though.

Walked in with a MBA that had an obviously bad (electronically) LCD, walked out 10 minutes later with a full-unit replacement. No appointment needed.

Cpt-Waffles said:

LOL how did the above happen? Did the iPhone fall onto the Macbook

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Nah, the iPhone was just a genuinely faulty unit, how does one break a noise cancelling mic?

I have dealt with the online store (I don't have one near me either) and have had nothing less than stellar experiences with them. I have never had friendly service like I have every time I have called them, and have never had any hold times. And this was customer service, and not sales. They exceeded expectations every time.

monkeybagel said:

I have dealt with the online store (I don't have one near me either) and have had nothing less than stellar experiences with them. I have never had friendly service like I have every time I have called them, and have never had any hold times. And this was customer service, and not sales. They exceeded expectations every time.

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The only bad time I had was when the lady that answered told me that they would not give me a price adjustment 5 days after I bought my MBP refurb and the price went down on the store site. I told her I had an identical computer and she said it must have software or some other added item. I gave up, called right back and this time the new lady said "of course, I'll take care of it rifght away" could not have been nicer. I told her I hoped they would retrain the other lady.

RUGERMAN said:

The only bad time I had was when the lady that answered told me that they would not give me a price adjustment 5 days after I bought my MBP refurb and the price went down on the store site. I told her I had an identical computer and she said it must have software or some other added item. I gave up, called right back and this time the new lady said "of course, I'll take care of it rifght away" could not have been nicer. I told her I hoped they would retrain the other lady.

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I am also a big ThinkPad fan, and am a firm believer in their hardware. Their customer service however, has really went downhill since they are no longer fully owned by IBM. I still buy their PCs, but if I didn't like the feel and the build quality of their machines, I would probably look elsewhere.

For example. I had a ThinkPad that had a palm rest crack from heavy usage and a known problem. The said they would send someone out to replace it at my office. As it ends up, I was sick that day and didn't make it into the office. The service technician left his direct cell number for me to call and set up a time for him to return. It was the next week when I was back in the office, so I called him. He said since it was more than two days that I would have to go through the entire process over again and they would need to create a new service ticket. I called up their repair number and was told my warranty had expired about two days ago. I explained to them that since the problem was reported while the product was in warranty, and also why I could not make the appointment, and they said there was nothing they could do and "is there anything else we can help you with?" before ending the call. I was very disappointed in that experience.

There is no way if that would have been Apple I would have been treated that way. They literally bed over backwards to take care of their customers. I wish they made servers and had on-site service for their notebooks.

I told Apple based of off the experience I had with them that I would be a customer for life. No wonder so many like Apple.

I am sure that some have had bad experiences - it's bound to happen, but each time I have had to interact with them they have always greatly exceeded my expectations. Hard to say that for any company.

Cpt-Waffles said:

So anyone had any really good or bad experiences with Apple Stores?

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Yup

I never had a problem at the Apple store, but I also always had an appointment too. Not sure I would jump in my car and drive three hours without an appointment, the time it took to call and ask if I needed an appointment would have been the same time it took to make an appointment on my iphone.

I don't have many experiences, but my brother had a bad one. He went to get a gift card for his friend at an Apple store known for cocky employees. Surely enough, he got an employee with a cocky attitude (the store is in a REALLY rich area). Nonetheless, he said he wanted to buy a $25 gift card (I wasn't with him btw) and the employee supposedly smirked and rudely said "that's it?!". Didn't end well....

I've generally had pretty favorable experiences in the Apple stores until recently.

I've got a Mid-2012 MacBook Pro which they first tried to claim was out of warranty but later revised as I explained to them that a product RELEASED mid 2012 shouldn't be out of warranty until at least mid 2013 assuming a 1 year hardware warranty the rep had a "duh" moment and got that fixed up for me so that I could claim warranty repair on my initial problem of a trackpad that no longer physically clicked down this was only the beginning of my troubles... I received the computer back within the stated 3-5 day turnaround period and upon inspection noted a couple rather prominent scratches on the top case that definitely weren't present on the previously pristine computer I'd brought in to them so that piqued my suspicion upon closer inspection I found a rather deep gouge in the bottom plate as well as in the nearest foot. I asked for some type of resolution and the store manager was called over, I calmly explained the situation to him and at first he claimed he was unable to do anything to resolve the situation claiming I had damaged the unit myself until I told him that I was in fact a technician and this was unacceptable and a machine would NOT leave my shop in worse condition than I received it and to blame the customer was not acceptable. All the while the store manager has assumed a bulldog like stance complete with flared shoulders and both hands on the table he then offered to replace the top damaged portion which they of course didn't have in stock and being near the weekend wouldn't be until the following week following another 3-5 day repair turnaround now with all of this said my travel distance to reach the store is between 90-100 miles round trip.

I informed the manager this resolution was NOT acceptable and asked if he could provide any other resolution he declined any further resolution and flatly refused to replace the bottom panel claiming it would be practically impossible for them to damage the bottom panel I questioned how it would be possible for them to damage the top case and admit fault but practically impossible in his words to damage the bottom panel this seemed to further agitate him so rather than continue to escalate the situation and possibly cause a scene I informed him I would be contacting Apple directly to resolve the situation to which he smirked and rattled off their phone number and said go ahead everything is in our notes for them to see!

I contacted Apple the next day who approved replacement of both the top case and bottom case along with bottom panel in the time between my trip back in today I decided to Boot Camp the machine with a copy of Windows 7 I had laying around when I discovered that my internal superdrive no longer functions I chalked it up to coincidence and figured I'd just inform them when I came back in to drop the machine off but decided to run the Apple Hardware Test (AHT) just to rule out software issues. I'm now unable to complete the AHT having it never go past testing memory always hanging at 3 minutes 35 seconds every time provided I can actually get the AHT to load usually I receive a -5010D error which doesn't seem to exist on Apple's website, google has no mention of it and the genius even admitted he'd never seen that error code before but claims that it passed their higher level diagnostics tests, now common sense logic what have you would dictate that if a machine won't pass a BASIC diagnostic test then how would the same machine pass an advanced diagnostic test?

I'm at this point wondering what next? how long are they going to try to claim customer damage to a machine that lives on a desk in a locked room and if it ever leaves the desk is in a padded zipped carrying case? How long are they going to try to limp this machine along until they've replaced literally everything by my tally they're already up to over $1,000 in parts & labor on this machine. I had to stop myself from laughing when the genius offered to sell me Applecare maybe it was a hint?

At this point I'm thinking I may be better off to get out from under a falling giant and sell all of my Apple gear, the MacBook Pro the MacBook two Mac Minis the Time Capsule iPad and iPhones if I want this level of service I can easily find it at 3x less cost.

I apologize for the long post/rant but I'm understandably quite irritated with this whole situation.

I bought a faulty iPod touch and the Apple Store staff apologized and exchanged it.

When I purchased a 4S from Craigslist I set up and appointment with the Genius bar to check it out. They did so free of charge.

Could the guy you spoke to have bent the rules for you? Yes. But the stores are staffed by people and they don't make that much money. Some folks just don't have the nack for customer service. Maybe he'd been having a bad day and was simply projecting that on you. Point is, you probably could have spoken to someone else in the same store and had an experience 180 degrees from what you saw.

I generally try to avoid physical Apple stores if possible. They are always way too busy and I often have left the store not only failing to achieve the objective for going into the store, but also failing to find anyone to speak to. For repairs I use an authorised repair centre, always able to just walk in and drop off the machine, no hanging around, also I have found that the authorised centres don't make you sit around for an hour while they run diagnostics, unlike the Apple stores where you must sit at the genius counter while the genius runs through everything before finally deciding to take the machine in for repair.

Sounds about right. I live down the street a store and have been turned away many times when doing walk-ins, no matter how serious or small the issue was. When you actually show up to an appointment though, the geniuses are generally nice people. I can't say the same for sales.

Apple Store employees have always been good to me. Although when I first got a Mac I asked about viruses and was told to get an anti virus. The guy said he gets a virus once a month or so. Should have left right there and got a PC. And come to show him

iAsimov76 said:

Yup

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I have a client (I'm an independent IT consultant) that had horrible store experiences yesterday. She had a month old iPad that loss touch capabilities at the right end of the unit about one inch wide the length of the unit. She took it to one store and was told to go home and make an appointment. She asked if they could schedule one for her in store and they refused. She went home and made an appointment at another apple store. During that appointment they wouldn't help her nor replace the device because she didn't know the password to her apple id. They told her to go home, reset the password, and make another appointment. She made a third appointment during which they told her it wasn't defective but she should use more hand lotion so her skin wasn't so dry, aiding in the touch ability. She demanded a manager and they replaced it, but had to transfer the apple id info herself in store after the employees left. It was enough rude handling that she was in tears (according to the email she sent me) and is ready to swear off Apple. What makes this worse is she is a business customer (working for a large well known US tax firm) stated she was using this for business as well as personal and was blown off by multiple employees. While she made these appointments while out shopping, I'm going to be handling any future store sessions. I know that the two apple stores here by Milwaukee, WI have an issue where the weekend staff is often completely different then the weekday staff.

Frankly I'm appalled and ready to escalate this up the chain. I just don't know the right contact. I used Steve's email for a few extreme instances but since he died, I'm not sure how they handled these. I haven't searched yet, but does anyone know the new executive contact email(s)?

tech4all said:

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Yup

ryanflucas said:

I have a client (I'm an independent IT consultant) that had horrible store experiences yesterday. She had a month old iPad that loss touch capabilities at the right end of the unit about one inch wide the length of the unit. She took it to one store and was told to go home and make an appointment. She asked if they could schedule one for her in store and they refused. She went home and made an appointment at another apple store. During that appointment they wouldn't help her nor replace the device because she didn't know the password to her apple id. They told her to go home, reset the password, and make another appointment. She made a third appointment during which they told her it wasn't defective but she should use more hand lotion so her skin wasn't so dry, aiding in the touch ability. She demanded a manager and they replaced it, but had to transfer the apple id info herself in store after the employees left. It was enough rude handling that she was in tears (according to the email she sent me) and is ready to swear off Apple. What makes this worse is she is a business customer (working for a large well known US tax firm) stated she was using this for business as well as personal and was blown off by multiple employees. While she made these appointments while out shopping, I'm going to be handling any future store sessions. I know that the two apple stores here by Milwaukee, WI have an issue where the weekend staff is often completely different then the weekday staff.

Frankly I'm appalled and ready to escalate this up the chain. I just don't know the right contact. I used Steve's email for a few extreme instances but since he died, I'm not sure how they handled these. I haven't searched yet, but does anyone know the new executive contact email(s)?

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That sounds like a pretty bad experience. Perhaps it was a set of bad employee's that happened to be at that particular store. It could be possible that store isn't the best in the Apple experience. I know that I've been to the Apple store in Bayshore and they were super helpful. My Macbook was out of warranty for a few months and my battery was acting up. Went in (yes I had an appointment) and they took a look. Said that even though the warranty was up, the number of cycles was way to low for my battery to be dead. Gave me a new one on the spot even though I was out of warranty.

good and bad

Worst experiences ever at the Apple Grand Central NYC store, just swapping machines and ultimately returning since my wrists are not trackpad inclined.

They were beyond rude and unprofessional. I will only go to brick and mortar 5th Avenue apple store now to buy stock items and/or test Macs. I have had great and meh experiences there, but my last two purchases went quite well(iDevices).

My online dealings have been better overall except in the case of returning my brand new dud 2010 iMac, it got done but with a lot of attitude.

As they get more popular, it seems like YMWV depending on your issues. I hope this changes for the better.

Mac Reseller Experience

Recently, I ordered at my local Apple reseller a Mac Mini with 2.3 GHz Quad core i7, 2 X 1TB HD and 8 GB RAM along with an NEC 27" monitor. The setup is to be used by a visually impaired person so the unit was to be set at a non-native resolution (1600 x 900). To insure that my needs would be met, the salesman suggested that before the units leave the store that they be set up and tested. Low and behold, the Mac Mini was dead on arrival - it would not boot! What the salesman stated next sent a shiver down my spine. He stated that since the Mini was a custom order, it could not be returned to Apple and would need to be serviced by his store's techs. Luckily, I was notified the next day to pick up my Mini - it was only a loose wire on the HD. The salesman performed the in-store test of the Mini/monitor function and the display resolution was excellent. The units have functioned flawlessly for the past 2 months.

I am grateful for the Apple reseller salesman's willingness to spend the extra time and effort to insure this customer's satisfaction. However, Apple not accepting a return of a DOA custom order is worrisome.

I wrote an email to Tim Cook's executive email address along with transcripts of the emails with the client of mine with the issue.

I figured it was a bad staff experience, but I'm finding that she went to both Bayshore & Mayfair locations, (3 appointments total in the same day) and drove home between each appointment. She lives on the Sussex/Pewaukee border so either store is a bit of a hike for her. 1 month old iPad with Applecare+.

I don't see why an Apple ID is even required to swap the defective unit with the new one? A unit is defective by an issue in the hardware, not dependent on the Apple ID at all. She was denied during one appointment because she didn't know the password to her Apple ID and they said she can't reset it in store. She ended up driving home, resetting the password from their website, making another appointment, and driving back. Crazy.