Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

anyone here hates their apple retail store, too?

P

PBG4

macrumors member
Original poster
May 19, 2005
40
1
Orange County, CA
the past few time when i go visit the apple retail store at Brea, California was not so pleasant.
the genius bar people was not helpful at all, and the wait time was over 30 minutes even with the online appointment.
i just didnt get any good vibes from the employee there at the time. no greetings in the store what so ever. and the people at the genius bar didnt even recognized our existence at all.
the genius bar people handled my ipod and powerbook w/o being carefull, (im a very neat person and i kept my powerbook and ipod scratch free) they made me to take out the ipod out from the sleeve, and they didnt not seems to care about scratching the ipod (sliding my ipod across the genius bar w/o lifting up and placing it down) it kinda feels like they dont care about your stuff.

however i have had better experiences at the southcost plaza store.

i really like the apple product, but really hate to visit the apple store.
has anyone here agree with me that apple product's quality has gone down than 2 or 3 years ago?
i had an iMac for 2 years and never had any problems need to take it to the store, but the powerbook has have several problems that needs to take in to Apple Store and visit a Genius bar.
 
PBG4 said:
the past few time when i go visit the apple retail store at Brea, California was not so pleasant.
the genius bar people was not helpful at all, and the wait time was over 30 minutes even with the online appointment.
i just didnt get any good vibes from the employee there at the time. no greetings in the store what so ever. and the people at the genius bar didnt even recognized our existence at all.
the genius bar people handled my ipod and powerbook w/o being carefull, (im a very neat person and i kept my powerbook and ipod scratch free) they made me to take out the ipod out from the sleeve, and they didnt not seems to care about scratching the ipod (sliding my ipod across the genius bar w/o lifting up and placing it down) it kinda feels like they dont care about your stuff.

however i have had better experiences at the southcost plaza store.

i really like the apple product, but really hate to visit the apple store.
has anyone here agree with me that apple product's quality has gone down than 2 or 3 years ago?
i had an iMac for 2 years and never had any problems need to take it to the store, but the powerbook has have several problems that needs to take in to Apple Store and visit a Genius bar.
Click to expand...

Iused to work at an Apple store. Call the store manager, Apple is very conscous about customer experiance.
 
I have mixed feelings about the Apple store... I've never gone for tech support. It seems like they rarely know more about anything than I do. :( But they have great deals on things sometimes. I bought my Powershot there, and the deal was *amazing*. :)
 
update:
so they sent us away saying there was no problem w/ the ipod.
but when i get home, the problems occurs again
ive tried restart, and restore the ipod. problem is not going away.
and my ipod updater is the latest version. along with the iTune, iPhoto.
and it still says "disk cannot be read from or written to"
and yes i have followed these steps "Disk cannot be read from or written to" when syncing iPod or "Firmware update failure" error when updating or restoring iPod
i might have to go down to the south coast store to see if they can slove the problem
 
update: so i went to the South Coast Plaza sotre today, and they check w/ the ipod and replace one for me!
the service is WAYYY better than Brea store. recommand!
 
Sagemore (Marlton, NJ) Store Rocks!

I love my Apple store. Everyone in there is helpful and friendly. The asst mgr there (Gabe) is really cool and actually wants to get to know the customer beyond selling them crap. At least, that's how he makes you feel. However, they're all overwhelmed with the volume that's apparent. The only complaint that I have is with the Genius Bar as well.

I'm sure there's a protocol/training that must be followed to work that bar but I cannot believe that they set the standards very high. These folks simply do not remind me of techs-- although some of them appear to being opening computers and removing/replacing things.

To me they come off more as a "power user" who may/may not simply have the experiencial knowledge to help you. I've used the Genius Bar one time and I considered it a big waste of time. Not to mention that our store is SO busy that it's difficult to get an appointment even when using the online reservation system.

http://www.apple.com/retail/sagemore
 
I agree with those who say that their people know about as much, and sometimes less, than we do.

I called the store over the weekend to see if I could get an airport antenna for my Power Mac G5. After starting the sentence with, "I have a Power Mac G5..." it took the guy 5 minutes to figure out that I wasn't talking about a notebook. I just let him try to figure out on his own what I was talking about. All in all, he wasn't much help. :)
 
Prelude2Tragedy said:
The whole promenade is awesome. I really like that apple store too.
Click to expand...

Sounds like we'll need to make an "apple shopping" appointment. The apple store is the first computer store that my wife doesn't mind visiting. They (apple) really have worked hard to make sure that your apple experience is warm/inviting (cult-like).

I'm very impressed with HOW they do business as much as I am about their products.

Back on point-- do the apple-heads here ever have get togethers/meet and greets? It would be cool to round up the sagemore users-- maybe do something over there at PF Chang's.
 
Only thing I hate about it is the size. We have one of the small stores and its constantly packed. Sometimes I just want to go in, read my email on a 30" screen whilst having my draw drop at the same time, yet theyre always being used by others! :mad:
 
I like my apple store experience 3 out of 4 times. Sometimes, 25% of the times, the apple store employee I talk to has no clue what they are talking about. they pretend to know then at the end ask, "sorry but what does DRM mean?" or "Oh, I didn't know it can do that". And their genius bar doesn't always have geniuses.

But 100% of the time they are friendly. Always a good place to check your email when your shopping :)
 
Project said:
Only thing I hate about it is the size. We have one of the small stores and its constantly packed. Sometimes I just want to go in, read my email on a 30" screen whilst having my draw drop at the same time, yet theyre always being used by others! :mad:
Click to expand...

Yeah.. mine is really small. (Houston Galleria)
People on there turn the volume ALL THE WAY UP on all the iPod stereo systems and the computers, so it's really friggin' loud.
I'm really sensitive to noise. It drives me absolutely nutters. I hate sitting at the genius bar for 45 minutes waiting for help while the 10 people in front of me have brought in iPods that just need a hard reset, while the stereos are BLARING and I have to yell to be heard.
Also the geniuses just leave sometimes. He'll go to the back to check on something (that would take me 2 minutes) and it takes him 15. If my PowerBook were functioning, I would just google it and save me (and him) the 13 minutes.
(Most of) the guys that work the bar are pretty cool. They seem to know what they're talking about. I've heard one tell a customer to "go to MacRumors.com and search for [the] problem."

If they could put a cap on the volume, have a line JUST for "my iPod doesn't work!!1!1!", and be a little less busy, I'd be happy.

But that won't happen because it's in the middle of the upscale shopping mall, and putting a volume cap on stuff instead of having an employee turn down the stereo ever 2 minutes would make sense.

I can't wait until the Memorial City Mall Apple Store opens sometime in September. I'm kinda sick of the Galleria one. The clientele, some snooty clerks, too crowded, too loud, no "The Studio".

Bla.. Memorial City mall is a little further away than the Galleria. Damn.
 
sagemore is mine too... They replaced my G4 iMac with a G5 iMac for free and that was all the work of Nikki the service manager... Without her it wouldn't have gotten done...

It's tough to get any service there though- it's always packed... I try going at odd hours, but it's packed from the minute it opens to the minute it closes...It's tough for the employees there, but they do a good job with the situation...
 
I really like my local Apple store. I can talk shop with most of the employees there and can try out the newest gear. It has been getting much busier now that Apple is blowing up, but it's still a great store.
 
My Apple Store (Annapolis) has generally been very good. The last guy I dealt with's sole mission was to get me out of the store, though. I kept telling him that the problems with the machine were not consistent, and he kept telling me "well if I can't reproduce them." I was thinking he should have offered to hold the machine for a few days and try harder, but meh.
 
just be lucky that you have an apple store to go to, or two. The closest retail apple store I think is 6 hours away. The closest Apple Reseller is 2 hours away. So, be thankful that you have an Apple Store near your home, even though it isn't the best one:p
 
turbopants said:
I really like my local Apple store. I can talk shop with most of the employees there and can try out the newest gear. It has been getting much busier now that Apple is blowing up, but it's still a great store.
Click to expand...

Talking about the one on the magnificent mile? I like that store A LOT. I tend to go to OakBrook Mall for my apple experiences though.
 
My apple store is the London one on regent street. The place is largely seen as an Internet cafe with most of the people there just using it to go online for free. It looks nice but I generally go there to play with new stuff, haven't been in the market for a new system for a while and all I've bought is an airport on 'Tiger night'.
 
I love the store at South Shore. Going to the Hingham one on Thursday for someone that has an iMac that i believe has the Midplane problem.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back