Apple Reportedly Advised Technicians to Push iPhone Upgrades to Customers With Out-of-Warranty Devices

[iSayuSay]

iPhone starts at US$449. If you are using different dollars then you should say so.

Wrong.. iPhone starts at US$ 249, it's called iPhone SE and Apple sells them in a quick succession.

But then again I'm talking iPhone with A12 chip inside so that it qualifies as NEW iPhone, not an old iPhone repackaged as 2018 products. It's pretty obvious though.

 

[iMEric984]

Nope a companies purpose is to make profit. Not max profit, just profit , that’s the definition of an company. You don’t need to sell physical overpriced electronic waste, just to max profit!
[doublepost=1549727745][/doublepost]

Yes, 1 year warranty, so what?
[doublepost=1549727895][/doublepost]

300vs 800 to 1000, pls. Explain the upgrade advantage in detail

Um, 4 year old phone with outdated hardware versus newER phone.

Who said they have to spend 800-1000??
They can still get a good deal on a 7-8 series too.

 

[goonie4life9]

It’s not miscommunication when there are two different metrics. In stores, Apple’s metric for batteries was capacity. In the software, Apple’s metric for batteries was voltage stability. Apple’s software was degrading performance due to a battery problem while, at the exact same time, Apple
Stores were stating the battery was operating normally. That is dishonesty.

I don't view this as dishonesty because the alleged motive, that is to sell phones, would impale apple if really made public and proven. Therefore I believe it was more miscommunication and/or some amount of ineptness. Apple is not THAT stupid. YMMV regarding your opinion of this.

 

[PhoenixFireless]

I think it all depends on how they push upgrades.

if they suggest if might be better to buy a new phone than invest in high repair cost in old tech...then they deserve some praise. If however they push sales to inflate the numbers...then **** 'm

Overal I'm of the opinion: if your 6s or lower dies or breaks, buy a new device because ios updates aren't supported on those devices for much longer.

 

[I7guy]

It’s not miscommunication when there are two different metrics. In stores, Apple’s metric for batteries was capacity. In the software, Apple’s metric for batteries was voltage stability. Apple’s software was degrading performance due to a battery problem while, at the exact same time, Apple
Stores were stating the battery was operating normally. That is dishonesty.

It sounds like the left hand wasn't talking to the right hand. But okay, call it what you want. Sugarcoating or hyperbole to the extreme won't change there was an issue. Dishonesty implies malicious intent. I don't buy that.

 

[bingeciren]

Maybe if they made phones people wanted...

I know I wouldn't mind upgrading, if Apple made something I wanted.

Let me see, a 5SE with the specs of the X. We’ll call that model 5SEX. That would be ok.

 

[drinkingtea]

Looking for drama where there is no drama.

 

[LordVic]

Pretty sure it’s the other way around. Saks was sales people, people who will say “oh that looks great on you!” to get you to buy something. Walmart has pretty much no one, you can’t find an employee at Walmart even if you try most of the time...
[doublepost=1549741897][/doublepost]

How can you even SURVIVE without 4K!? I’ve met people that are buying small TVs for their kitchens and are absolutely convinced they need 1080p or the picture quality will be just horrible... I don’t get the fixation over the XR not being true 1080. It’s like 8 lines of resolution less than that and still has a crazy high pixel density. Nobody would ever be able to tell the difference in a blind test.

going to pose a question to make you think about this.

Would you be willing today to pay the exact same price for that 1080p TV as you did when you bought it, what? 5 years ago?

Nobody is saying that the display on the Xr is "Crap"... at least I hope not.

what people are saying is that in 2019, the price point that is being assigned for the device with it is too high. at the price point, a 1080p display would have cost Apple a few pennies difference overall.

I do agree, it doesn't need the higher resolution screen. it just need a $200 price cut.

 

[magicschoolbus]

what position is the company in, after the second best quarter on record? They actually have to advertise and ask people if they are ready to upgrade?
[doublepost=1549806776][/doublepost]
Like the fingerprints?

I guess? Look I understand the technology but to people that don’t I think they already feel like well they have
My fingerprint now they want my face. I know neither of these are true but I believe there is some public perception behind that

 

[duervo]

That’s very expensive compared to here in the UK and whilst I didn’t get an XR my package is identical, unlimited mins/texts and 10 GB of data, a Galaxy S9, nothing upfront for £27 a month (~CAN$45?)...oh and nothing traded in.....and a much better phone?

Yeah, we get ripped off here in Canada compared to some other countries. It's crazy.

 

[I7guy]

going to pose a question to make you think about this.

Would you be willing today to pay the exact same price for that 1080p TV as you did when you bought it, what? 5 years ago?

Nobody is saying that the display on the Xr is "Crap"... at least I hope not.

what people are saying is that in 2019, the price point that is being assigned for the device with it is too high. at the price point, a 1080p display would have cost Apple a few pennies difference overall.

I do agree, it doesn't need the higher resolution screen. it just need a $200 price cut.

Basically a straw-man, but I'll bite. Would you be willing to pay the same price today as the 1080 TV you bought 5 years ago if it had an LTE chip, am/fm tuner, 13/2 dolby decoder, tons of apps, built in blu-ray, ran windows so that high-end games couid be run as good as a windows desktop, etc.

To me at least, the screen has to be good enough. The xr screen is good enough and for apple it's in the ballpark.

 

[koodydee1]

I worked for Apple for 9 years, this is not new information nor a new process. They have ALWAYS tried to offer this over repairs

 

[Gilligan's last elephant]

going to pose a question to make you think about this.

Would you be willing today to pay the exact same price for that 1080p TV as you did when you bought it, what? 5 years ago?

Isn't that basically what Apple were expecting people to do with the Mac Mini?
No updates for 4 years and same price.

 

[Abazigal]

Anecdotal experience - I was at the Apple store looking at the Apple Watches and mentioned a desire to upgrade in passing to the Apple genius. He actually recommended that I not get the cellular version because his experience was that most customers not use the feature enough to merit the extra expenditure.

Sure doesn’t seem like a case of upselling to me.

 

[Defthand]

But she wasn’t fired.

Just an FYI... White collar employees—especially upper managers—are given the opportunity to resign when they are fired. This saves face for the employee, and lessens the chance of a wrongful termination claim later. Only if the employee refuses to resign, will the company fire him. It’s entirely possible she was encouraged to quit.

 

[AppleScruff1]

I worked for Apple for 9 years, this is not new information nor a new process. They have ALWAYS tried to offer this over repairs

No harm in offering, then the customer can decide what is best for them.

 

[DeepIn2U]

Seems like the slowdown in phone sales should have been seen from a million miles away. Its a relatively saturated market and the ‘wow’ factor of smart phones isnt there anymore.

Apple just doesnt have any product close to the earth moving iphone (and maybe never will again), so here we are, apple pushing iphone upgrades in conflict with what their own Lisa Jackson says is good for the planet.

Saturated market yes and above Norma pricing for new models doesn’t really help Apple. Wow factor for smartphones is still there its just Apple isn’t big on pushing out wow features. Camera quality from a 7 is still very good out of the box vs the X/XS/XR then there are apps to really help improve pics or features you can do with pics. IG, Snap and other social media filters is all the rage amongst women (who use the selfie cam more than men) so there isn’t much wow to get huge upgrades. Where in/out of the days where the latest is the status quo and shows your importance or net worth amongst your people.

Like Angela, Lisa Jackson maybe out of a job soon with statements like hers conflicting with the bottom line.
[doublepost=1549852428][/doublepost]

I upgraded to an iPhone XR from a 7 Plus, only because my cell phone provider had a Black Friday deal ... $100 for an iPhone XR 256GB, 2 yr contract with unlimited SMS/Multimedia Texts, Unlimited minutes across country, 10GB data a month all for $120/month (plus 5% sales tax). Considering my employer pays for my monthly plan, and all I have to pay is the device cost, it was a pretty easy decision.

New plan was $5/month cheaper than the old plan too (which was the same, except only 3GB/month.) (That’s what plans in Canada are like, to put it into perspective to anybody that’s curious.)

I missed out on such plans.

 

[Jimmy James]

Apple only backpedaled with their BS position on phone longevity because they got caught in the cpu throttling debacle.

 

[Laserducky]

desperate time for desperate measure...

Customer: "Hi, I want to buy an iphone cable..."

Apple Genius: "okay... you want a brand new iphone with that??"

Customer: "Hi, I want to buy an iphone cable..."

Apple Genius: "Okay... you are doing it wrong. You NEED a brand new iphone with that!

 

[goonie4life9]

I tend to agree that it was more likely that one group wasn’t talking to another group. However, that doesn’t change the fact that it was dishonest: telling a customer nothing is wrong when something is wrong is not true. In this case, it is dishonesty by omission (i.e., two groups in the same company failing to talk).

It sounds like the left hand wasn't talking to the right hand. But okay, call it what you want. Sugarcoating or hyperbole to the extreme won't change there was an issue. Dishonesty implies malicious intent. I don't buy that.

 

[newyorksole]

I worked for Apple for 9 years, this is not new information nor a new process. They have ALWAYS tried to offer this over repairs

Yeah uhhh no. Apple has never been THIS aggressive when it comes to selling iPhones. This is the first time that they’ve put new phones on display at Genius Bar tables. First time they have provided much higher trade in values as part of a “limited time promo” and first time they have required their business teams to call companies and see if they want to lease/buy multiple iPhones over other products.

This IS new. Anyone who says otherwise has not been following Apple Retail.
[doublepost=1549869950][/doublepost]

Anecdotal experience - I was at the Apple store looking at the Apple Watches and mentioned a desire to upgrade in passing to the Apple genius. He actually recommended that I not get the cellular version because his experience was that most customers not use the feature enough to merit the extra expenditure.

Sure doesn’t seem like a case of upselling to me.

Huh? Who said they’re trying to push Watch upgrades?! Lmao. This is about iPhone and they ARE trying to push more iPhone sales. It is a fact.

Angela’s latest slogan is literally “All in on iPhone”.

You guys can’t be this naive. Come on...

 

[pika2000]

During my experience in getting my old iPhones (5, 6 Plus, and 6S) into service, I never once had any genius employee offer me to upgrade. In fact, so far whenever I am buying stuff from Apple stores, I don’t sense any pushing to purchase anything extra, not even Apple Care. In fact, when I wanted to buy a Nike band for my Apple Watch, the Apple sales person discouraged me. It’s definitely not a Bestbuy or any other big retailers.

 

[Abazigal]

Huh? Who said they’re trying to push Watch upgrades?! Lmao. This is about iPhone and they ARE trying to push more iPhone sales. It is a fact.

Angela’s latest slogan is literally “All in on iPhone”.

You guys can’t be this naive. Come on...

Apple trying to bring more attention to their trade in programs can hardly be called upselling.

This is nothing more than news outlets making a mountain out of a molehill for the sake of creating outrage and driving views and clicks. And they have you all eating out of their hands.

 

[PG(Austin)]

Mr. Cook, iPhone isn't selling as well. What should we do?
a) Lower prices
b) Betray customers trust in Genius Bar technicians

This is just disappointing. A big advantage of Apple Stores was that you could trust they were offering you something according to your needs.

Boy are you naive.
[doublepost=1549888318][/doublepost]

Try calling into a ISP/Cable provider. Whew!!

Try cancelling a lawn service!

 

[DNichter]

Jesus, no it's not:

"Technicians were told to push iPhone upgrades to consumers with out-of-warranty devices."

An out-of warranty device is not eligible for an upgrade. Do you go around telling your customer's "use our product and you will be able to upgrade (but if you've been with us before we'll let you do it anyway)?

I don't see how an out of warranty device cannot be upgraded. You can turn an old device in for a credit on a new one. If they can't fix whatever issue because it is out of warranty, I don't see a problem with pushing a new device as an option, as long as you are giving the customer options.
[doublepost=1549891209][/doublepost]

Not exactly the same. It's one thing to try to sell your product who came to store looking for a phone. It's another thing when a person comes to a repairman to fix the device and the company tries to sell him a new phone. Even an advice to upgrade may make sense but when this is a directive from the management to try to sell rather than to try repair first it's borders on fraud (or at least neglect of the customer interests).

It just depends on the situation and the customer. I don't see an issue with pushing an upgrade as an option for the customer, as long as it is presented as a choice and not a mandate.