Apple Retail Employees Vent Frustrations About Stores Becoming Less 'Shopper-Friendly' in Recent Years

[msama]

It's definitely harder to get service. I was checking out the iPad pro and probably would have bought it on the spot had someone interacted with me at all. I tried to hunt down an employee but they were all with other people and went out of there way to avoid eye contact.

 

[DragnSlayrrr]

I haven't had any problems when making an appointment ahead of time. Walk in, get in seen in a few minutes and walk out.

When I randomly walk in to buy a cable or something it takes way too long. The first person who looks like they can check me out usually can't so someone else gets called over. They really should just let me scan the accessory with my phone and pay right there.

You can purchase it with your phone. You just need to download the Apple Store App. It has a scanner where you can make quick purchases. Anything serialized is a different story though.

 

[trekkie604]

The most annoying thing I find with an Apple Store is if I know exactly what I want; it takes forever to find an employee, have the back of house guy bring out the item, pay and leave.

 

[NickName99]

The service quality must vary quite a bit by store. Here in Portland, Oregon, I’ve been to a couple of different Apple stores and I’ve always had great service. For example: I walk in, I’m greeted, I ask where something is, they point it out, I pick out what I want, buy it from a nearby employee using Apple Pay on my phone and walk out. Even in the huge store downtown - there are tons of people, but enough employees that I never have any issues. In the Tigard store, I walked in with an external DVD/CD drive I bought used on eBay that had stopped working weeks later. They looked me up, saw I had bought MacBook Pros in the past, handed me a brand new drive. Other areas must have awful Apple stores, looking at all the negative comments. My wife and I are always impressed with the service in Apple stores around here, it’s kind of over the top, weirdly good.

 

[venom600]

The stores are always packed here in the LA area, but service is awful. You need a Genius appointment? Fine... you can have a spot in five to eight days, depending on the location. Once you get there you will be waiting at least a half hour past your appointment time. Have an emergency? Tough, you can sit around for what may be hours waiting to see if a cancellation happens or leave and come back in a week when there is an open appointment. You want to buy a computer? Get in the queue and maybe you’ll be seen in an hour, all the while watching employees mill around with nothing to do, not helping anyone.

 

[that be me]

It's definitely harder to get service. I was checking out the iPad pro and probably would have bought it on the spot had someone interacted with me at all. I tried to hunt down an employee but they were all with other people and went out of there way to avoid eye contact.

This happens to me all the time too. It's because I'm ugly, though.

 

[MN7119]

Although I agree she did a terrible job in transforming Apple Stores in a social gathering place and made very difficult to find products in the store I have to assume her ideas were shared with Apple's Senior Leadership Team and she got the green light to go ahead and make the changes. Thus, she should not be the only one to blame here.

 

[simonmet]

And god damn it I cannot return any goods in Hong Kong's Apple Stores since 2017. WTF? Tim Cook may care about your privacy but he never cares about Apple Store's service.

Sorry to hear. I wonder if the Hong Kong store had to change their returns policy because of high rates of abuse with people returning counterfeit accessories. China as we know is flooded with knock-offs that in some cases look very close to the real deal and the staff probably don’t have the time or means to check.

 

[stanhope]

Can't tell you how many times I was told to stand somewhere and wait, only to hear someone call my name somewhere else in the store and have to walk over to them and ask: Are you asking for me? (They were).

I don't go to the Apple Store very often but you would think that this is not something difficult to do?

The biggest "problem" I see with Apple Stores is that they're really packed. The appointment system basically guaranteed us service when we walk in, I like it.

Either way, my service at local Apple Stores has been absolutely amazing. Apple support (replacing my broken phone in 6 minutes, for example) is one reason why I pay the Apple Tax if you want to call it that.

Happy to see they're working on improving this!

The stores have always been crowded...that isn’t the point...the way customers are handled with angela’s stupid concept is the problem....microsoft stores would love a crowd problem

 

[The Samurai]

Im surprised it took so long for this article to surface.

My local apple store in Glasgow used to be brilliant, it was on two levels and over the last couple of years, it went through with a refit (thanks to Angela) and it was completely ruined. They done away with the two stories and the iconic glass staircase and made it a single story store.

 

[8CoreWhore]

As of now, Apple still sees its stores as communal gathering places. According to CEO Tim Cook, "We should probably come up with a name other than 'store,' because it's more of a place for the community to use in a much broader way."

Maybe it wasn't Arendts.

This dictum makes the other functions impossible. She's gone and he's still pushing the key problem. I say he made her job impossible. How is O'Brien going to fix it, if she has to follow his dumb rule?

He doesn't even want to call it a store. It's some commune in the woods.

 

[Macintoshrumors]

They need to separate sales and service. Angela needed to go.

If you have been living under a rock, she is leaving.

 

[AxiomaticRubric]

Last time I went to an Apple Store it felt like a circus. There was an audio production session going on which no one was paying any attention to. In fact I got the impression some visitors were actually annoyed by it.

I felt sorry for the employee presenting the session, who had to make a fool of himself in front of so many people. Even with a microphone he was just adding to the already copious amounts of background noise.

 

[Defthand]

I used to be a former Senior Manager for Apple. Here's a video I posted about her Angelas's departure which pretty much spells out what happened.

Wowza. You heard it from a former Apple manager, folks. Shareholders before customers. Customers before evangelists.

It is a reality that is a philosophical departure from the brand's foundation. Once the soul has left, they won't be able to remember what made them special. Then issues, like chaotic stores, will be more significant than they are because nothing will be left to justify a customer's tolerance.

 

[Baymowe335]

If you have been living under a rock, she is leaving.

If you’re struggling with reading comprehension, you can clearly see I said “needed” to go, as in it already happened.

 

[JRobinsonJr]

Finally, someone might do something about the fact it's actually quite hard to walk into an Apple Store and just buy something.

It's frequently hard to just *walk in* because of the crowds! Apple Stores used to be someplace we would visit just for fun. See cool gadgets. Learn a new trick or two. Now? As others have commented... it's more like a chaotic bazaar!

 

[jonnyb098]

I hate going in those stores for any length of time -- too loud, too crowded. Maybe I'm just too old to enjoy that type of atmosphere.

Most people over 25 don't like that kind of atmosphere.
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I said this since the day Cook took over but it was early and people would say get over it it’s Post Jobs era.

Genius Bar appointments used to be 1 on 1 interactions with ZERO wait time. Jobs said he wanted customers to feel like family.

Immediately when Cook took over it became 1 employee for a table of 4 customers, all waiting while the employee ran around helping each at the same time.

I had a wait time of 20-30 min past my apt time. BUT they canceled my original appt once because I was late a couple min.

So I guess we aren’t allowed to be late but Apple is allowed to be 20-30 min late.

Cook downsized employees to save $$ on labor. This is what we got. Everything with him is monetary.

In those days Apple was a small family of devoted users. Now at a billion users you can't expect that. Apple is simply a giant company now. What they need are MORE stores. It doesnt help when you have people within a 20-30 radius all flocking to the ONE store that take 30 min to go to. They simply need more stores.

 

[SR 7]

In those days Apple was a small family of devoted users. Now at a billion users you can't expect that. Apple is simply a giant company now. What they need are MORE stores. It doesnt help when you have people within a 20-30 radius all flocking to the ONE store that take 30 min to go to. They simply need more stores.[/QUOTE]

At the time Apple sold more phones then they do now and Macs. ON TOP OF THAT, people went to go hang out there. You are saying it as if we are talking about the stone ages back when iPhones were still "oh what is that he has" device. Bruh, Apple has been a GIANT going back in 2008. I'm not talking about 2002 here lol.

There are 2 apple stores within walking distance of each other. Both used to be a zoo. Now? The store is probably 30-40% of what it used to be...crowd wise.

 

[Moonjumper]

"luxury shopping brand". Is that why prices have gone up massively in the same period as the Apple Store experience has degraded?

Apple is about quality, not luxury, or at least it used to be.

 

[SR 7]

I don't even care about the store experience, I don't go in there to hang out. I just care about phones being affordable again and worth the cost.

The fact that I bought a Late 09' Macbook with 128 GB IN 2009 and they still sell Macbooks in 2019 with 128 gb is all you need to know.

 

[VictorTango777]

They need to separate sales and service. Angela needed to go.

Apple wants to push the narrative of the Maytag repairman sitting around with nothing to do. Building up the service department and making it more visible would be admitting that more people do need service.

 

[Octavius8]

Tim, Apple stores are not "social gathering places", do they provide at least coffee?, movies?, a playground?, games?. Apple stores are not the mall by themselves. Just do the "store" part right, the iOS and devices right and we will come. No matter the silly name. The name is the least of our concerns when we go to an Apple store.

 

[Rlittle89]

I can say pretty confidently that I've never thought of an Apple store as a community gathering place. The idea of that is pretty hilarious...Unless you like your gathering places to be a small confusing sweat-box, where you casually glance at products that you generally only need to buy once every two years.

 

[coolfactor]

Seems the stores are less "kid-friendly".

If I was going there for a recall, I had to make a genius appointment to drop off the phone. They had to still run diagnostics on it. I brought two phones in and had to wait four hours for that phone to be seen. I was furious at that. I don't know if that was Angela or Tim policy but how the stores are run with returns/exchanges/and what not is stupid.

You would never see something like that at Best Buy. Why did Apple think that was such a good idea?

FOUR HOURS? I would not have waited 40 minutes.

One former Apple executive said that O'Brien is looking to borrow from the past and break up Apple stores into more clearly defined sections. These include areas that promote Apple's growing services business, like Apple Music and Apple TV+. A few employees speculated that she will also bring back the original Genius Bar.

I think this is a good idea. I don't fault Apple for trying different approaches; it's the only way you'll know what truly works.
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I miss the day when Apple displayed new devices at the store front windows. It gives me an idea that new products are out. Now, it is just seeing clients in lines. For some reason the stores remind me of hospitals.

My favourite "window shopping" ad is this one...

 

[coolfactor]

I can say pretty confidently that I've never thought of an Apple store as a community gathering place. The idea of that is pretty hilarious...Unless you like your gathering places to be a small confusing sweat-box, where you casually glance at products that you generally only need to buy once every two years.

There's different types of stores. The "gathering place" concept does not apply to the small "mall stores", but rather to the large flagship stores that are so massive, you forget you're in a store.

It was a worthy idea to test out, but ultimately seems to conflict with what's more important to people — a great sales and support experience.