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Apple Retail Ends Genius Training in Cupertino, Moves to In-Store Web Seminars

Apple just want to concentrate on sales at their stores. Repairs take time and with the obsession of integration and thinness. Going to become impossible to repair on sight in the very near future.

I use to enjoy going to my nearest Apple Store but not so much now ...just doesn't feel the same anymore and can't pin point why.
 
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Applebot1 said:
Apple just want to concentrate on sales at their stores. Repairs take time and with the obsession of integration and thinness. Going to become impossible to repair on sight in the very near future.
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That could explain both Apple doing this Genius training change, while at the same time fighting "right to repair" laws for consumers.
 
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Well, if this doesn't make it crystal clear that Tim brought in Angela to be Head of Retail Bean Counting, I don't know what will. The "holiday bonus" they got last year was another shining example.

The last few experiences I've had with Apple Retail over the past two years have been average. Not great, not awful...just average. If Apple thinks it's going to be able to continue to charge premium prices in exchange for average customer experiences over the long term, they're going to eventually get a huge wakeup call. They can't charge Rolex prices, operate the retail side of the business like a Best Buy, and expect to have blockbuster sales numbers long term.
 
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not_enough_trillions.jpg
 
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Makes sense.

The skill level to be a "genius" is decreasing year by year as apple drops products and makes their products with fewer large Field Repairable Units (FRUs).

Take the MacBook Pro 2016. No more memory or drive swaps. Bad driver? Pull the screws and replace the whole logic board. Hope the customer backed up.

And with Apple branded routers, monitors and other products being dropped or replaced by 3rd party products, the repair becomes, send it in the 3rd party repair depot and hand the customer a ticket.
 
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magbarn said:
Lol, one of the richest companies in the world cheapening and dumbing down their employees just like Circuit City/Good Guys/Best Buy...
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THE richest.

And I very much doubt this will prove detrimental to what is currently pretty much unparalleled in terms of aftersales service.
 
jerryk said:
Makes sense.

The skill level to be a "genius" is decreasing year by year as apple drops products and makes their products with fewer large Field Repairable Units (FRUs).

Take the MacBook Pro 2016. No more memory or drive swaps. Bad driver? Pull the screws and replace the whole logic board. Hope the customer backed up.

And with Apple branded routers, monitors and other products being dropped or replaced by 3rd party products, the repair becomes, send it in the 3rd party repair depot and hand the customer a ticket.
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"The skill level to be a "genius" is decreasing year by year..."

That has not been my experience, at least in the SF Bay Area.


"Hope the customer backed up."

With respect to hoping the customer backed up, that is something they talk about and verify with the customer before accepting an item for repair - even for laptop battery replacement. On a recent battery replacement I was asked twice, once by the greeter/scheduler, and then again by the genius who handled my repair.


"And with Apple branded routers, monitors and other products being dropped or replaced by 3rd party products"

Apple routers have not been dropped or replaced with 3rd party products.
 
I believe that this is a bad idea. I used to train tier 1 and 2 iOS/iPod and group based training plus hands on with the devices was the absolute best way to get through to the vast majority of students. The self guided training lessons, while true Apple quality, were just far too easy to breeze through without retaining anything.
 
the bean counter keeps telling his investors they will make more money while killing Apple

the next Apple CEO will have to deal with a huge mess he is leaving

Apple will never recover after Cook's reign
 
amegicfox said:
the bean counter keeps telling his investors they will make more money while killing Apple

the next Apple CEO will have to deal with a huge mess he is leaving

Apple will never recover after Cook's reign
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Yeah, because things are going so badly for them right now. You saw the Earnings Call, right?
 
"This means that many customers who check their computers in for repair may have their device serviced by someone who has never physically worked on their model of computer before," said a person familiar with the matter.
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and just like that POOF! The dawn of teh disposable computer in ALL forms is 'just so real now, isn't it?!"

Yessir we saw this with the iMac then the Macbook, and the MacBook Pro. Next up the Mac Mini (supremely mini like AppleTV v2/3 size and coming up after Mac Pro.
 
Because ? Products glued together require Masters of Dissolvents ? And for compensation ?
Cook to fetch every Genius once in his lifetime to Cupertino to gaze at & clean the Spaceship for even further cost reduction ?
 
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IMHO. Cutting back or eliminating employee training is never done to "improve" customer service. It is a bottom line decision, taken to reduce an expense.
 
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Cineplex said:
WHAT?!?!?!

I can tell you what this really means. No more in store hardware repairs. Apple is creeping to a "swap it out" system. I bet the next generation of Macs released will not be repairable and will have to go back to be refurbished at the depot or wherever they send them now. We used to send them to Texas, not sure that facility is still there. They probably go to China now. There are going to be big changes at the bar.
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foxconn said:
what? no.

it was "swap it out" system for years (with iPhones, iPods, etc, NO computers AFAIK) and just recently Apple started doing in-store repairs.
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Indeed.

What was the name of that silly 'robot' advertised in WWDC 2016 for iPhone dismantling? Mutliply that robot with 10x more joints and tasks by about 100'000 and Trumps 'America First Again' agenda and THAT is how Apple will bring jobs back to the USA

Assembly - Robots
Parts - SAP + overseas manul labour in the shipping process
Jobs in the USA - Packaging, Programming Robots, repairing Robots.
 
Apple has been penny pinching for years now. I remember while working there when the californian made shirts were suddenly replaced with shirts made in Vietnam. I thought it was odd that one of the richest companies in the world cut jobs on their own soil :/
 
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