Fantastic[/sarcasm] Apple Store Service

[bld44]

I go into my local apple store to exchange another faulty product, a brand-new 23" ACD with backlight problems (my second to return), and the Apple store refuses service because they cannot find my genius bar reservation (looks like I made it at the other store across town). Certainly, I can understand it if the Genius Bar is swamped and there's no way I can be helped, but when I first went in explained I was a bit early for my appointment (about 20 minutes) and the Genius was going to start helping me because the place was ABSOLUTELY DEAD (tons of associates standing around doing nothing, nobody waiting at the bar). He goes to pull up my reservation, and cannot find it. I guess because I don't have a reservation (even though I sorta did) means that I'm not a customer or something, because the genius runs off into the back without helping me. An associate then comes up, and I explain my situation and he offers to check and see if there are any appointments left today after explaining that the "Genius" is busy and probably can't help me. No reservations are available on the computer (since when can you make same-day reservations with the Genius bar? I've never been able to.) Explains to me that they can't help me and that I'll have to make an another appointment and come back again. I tell him its a quick problem, I'll set the monitor up and it will take two seconds of the Genius' time to look at (very obvious and grounds for exchange), he refuses. I ask him if I can leave it here and go eat lunch and the Genius can take a look at it when he can-- "absolutely not." He basically walks off at this point too, with no solution. Being a little caught up in the moment, I left the store instead of confronting a manager. This was not the first time I have had problems with this particular store.

Last time I checked, I don't know of any other retail stores that require you to make an appointment to return or exchange a faulty product. This is absolutely absurd. I have ANOTHER appointment tomorrow. As much money as all of these products cost, the Apple store should be going out of their way to get a product that actually works in my hands, instead of making me take another trip to the apple store for no blatant reason.

[/end rant].

 

[Kelleheretic]

This didn't happen to be at the Christiana Mall in Delaware did it? I've had several terrible experiences with the Genius Bar there.

 

[killerrobot]

Fantastic? Oh I now see the sarcasm... What excellent customer service!

There's no excuse for anything like that to happen. Ever. Both of them should be fired immediately and never allowed into an Apple store again.
Of course if they were that horrible, you can't expect much more out of the manager of the store I would imagine - he/she obviously isn't doing his/her job either.

 

[gotzero]

This didn't happen to be at the Christiana Mall in Delaware did it? I've had several terrible experiences with the Genius Bar there.

Funny you mention DE, this is my local store, and after getting treated horribly one last time this week, I have decided to simply stop shopping at this store. It should be a convinience, but I am just further enraged every time I go. The last straw was this week when i got treated like a criminal and had to pay $200 to replace an iphone that had just given into use. The aluminum (you know, the pliable metal...) had a dent, so it had to be replaced as a damage repair...

I was so tempted to go out to the car and get my MBP, full of dents and functioning perfectly...

 

[mavherzog]

I was so tempted to go out to the car and get my MBP, full of dents and functioning perfectly...

Hate to thread hijack, however as someone who is getting ready to pull the trigger on a new MBP, I have to say . . .

FULL OF DENTS??? Are you particularly rough on it? Or are the MBP's just THAT prone to damage?

 

[ruZZ.il]

mine is almost a year old, and dent-less
I'm not rough with it though, but its definitely not pampered.

 

[Kelleheretic]

The DE store seems just to have stinky managers. My iPod touch has dead sectors on the screen, and a Genius on the phone promised me a retail replacement...so I went in and a manager stopped him (the new touch was in my hand...) I'm just sending it to Apple in the mail. I'm done with that store as far as service goes, but I still feel compelled to buy things there. I'll be back to my favorite Apple Store (Gateway, Salt Lake, Represent) soon enough...

 

[bld44]

Of course if they were that horrible, you can't expect much more out of the manager of the store I would imagine - he/she obviously isn't doing his/her job either.

That's what I was thinking. I've honestly about had it, for a $900 monitor there shouldn't be any problems and then they should be bending over backwards to exchange it, instead of wasting my time, patience and money. I plan doing the steve jobs email thing explaining all of the problems I've had (not the first) with this store, as well as the monitors. Maybe we can get somewhere with them, because I know this store isn't going to be helpful.

And no, this was not the delaware store. I'll post the name of it later.

 

[joeloud]

Was it the Florida Mall in Orlando? My first and to-be only visit to that store was earlier this month. I completely agree that the appointment thing is crap; at least in how they set it all up. I went to the Mall at Millenia (also in Orlando), hoping to replace or at least find out about how to fix my 16GB iPod Touch with the "negative black" problem. They were courteous, but there weren't any appointments available, and they were sold out of 16GB Touch's, so they said I'd be better off talking to Apple Care. I took a chance and drove over to the Florida Mall, and watched a guy in front of me buy a 16GB iPod Touch, so I asked if a genius could look at it. No. I needed an appointment, and there aren't anymore today. Whatever.

I went to eat dinner and decided to stop by on the way to my car, and lo and behold, there was no one on the waiting list for iPod issues. I thought they were full up for the day? Oh well. Now, this being my first time dealing with the Genius Bar, I stood at the bar, waiting for someone to talk to, and both the guys there were busy. I understood, you know, they were working with customers about Mac issues and they'll get to me when they're done. Employees were walking back and forth around the counter, and no one asked me if I'd been helped or ANYTHING, so I waited paitently for a Genius to talk to. Then, somebody who obviously knew the process put his name on the list, and after I had been standing there for 25 minutes, they helped him immediately. They might be geniuses, but that particular store got a big fat F in customer service from me. I know now that I could have put my own name in on one of the computers myself, and the screens say that, but with the dozen or so people that walked on by, you'd think ONE of them might have thought to help me.

The best part is, apparently 1.1.1 "fixed" the issue, but I had sent it to Apple Care, and being "unable to reproduce the problem," they sent it back to me after restoring it, deleting all the music, videos, bookmarks and settings off of it for me to put back. Thanks guys! (I'm not entirely sure it was fixed, though I don't really care at this point)

I feel your pain. Hope the commiserating helps on some level.

 

[bld44]

Not Florida either.

Supprisingly at the next appointment I was treated very well by a different genius I had never seen before. He replaced my monitor without question, but as I was checking a different associate made several rude comments about having to exchange my monitor for the third time (even though I had never been to this store about a return). I let it go.

But now, after 5 days of use, the #3 monitor is flickering as well. I am just sick of dealing with this mess-- I sent an email to apple about my experiences in the apple store and the monitor problems (now assuming its related to my video card, or possibly the displays again). Hopefully someone will get back to me about it and tare care of me.

 

[Consultant]

Hate to thread hijack, however as someone who is getting ready to pull the trigger on a new MBP, I have to say . . .

FULL OF DENTS??? Are you particularly rough on it? Or are the MBP's just THAT prone to damage?

My 17" MBP is dent-less. My previous G4 PowerBook which was 3 year old was dent-less also.

Last week some drunk people moved my friend's powerbook (same material) and friggen stepped on it. Fortunately it's still dent-less, so I am guessing you have to be pretty rough on it to make dents. However, I would not try to test your laptop by stepping on it or see what kind of force would make dents.

As any laptops, I would get a good padded laptop bag.

 

[Consultant]

Not Florida either.

Supprisingly at the next appointment I was treated very well by a different genius I had never seen before. He replaced my monitor without question, but as I was checking a different associate made several rude comments about having to exchange my monitor for the third time (even though I had never been to this store about a return). I let it go.

But now, after 5 days of use, the #3 monitor is flickering as well. I am just sick of dealing with this mess-- I sent an email to apple about my experiences in the apple store and the monitor problems (now assuming its related to my video card, or possibly the displays again). Hopefully someone will get back to me about it and tare care of me.

I am sure when they replace the monitor, they used another computer to reproduce the problem?

Perhaps it's a unclean power source or something at your house causing interference?

Do you have the display on a battery backup? It'll isolate your equipment from power fluctuations.

 

[bld44]

I am sure when they replace the monitor, they used another computer to reproduce the problem?

Perhaps it's a unclean power source or something at your house causing interference?

Do you have the display on a battery backup? It'll isolate your equipment from power fluctuations.

Yes, the 1st that had the flicker occurred on another machine, although the genius wouldn't follow my instructions or slow down enough to look for the flicker. They were busy, he was in a hurry to get onto the next customer, and by the time that the monitor had warmed up and it was barely flickering, he didn't really care and gave me a new one. But I clearly saw the flickering when I took it in, and on my MacBook Pro.

There's not anything that could be causing interference because as I mentioned, I have two monitors next to each other and no matter what I do to either of them, always the new one will flicker. Wether its changing power sources, objects around the monitors, physical monitor locations (older monitor on the left doesnt flicker, doesnt if i move to right, but the newer monitor on the right flickers when I move to the left), switching DVI ports, unplugging USB/Firewire/ETC, always nada. The new monitor always flickers and the old doesn't. No battery backup and the flickering only occurs when I have a white window taking up most of the screen, as described in many other instances here.

Also to mention, the 2nd new monitor did not flicker, and I was extremely happy with it until the backlight developed bad spots in it after a week of use. Perhaps I didn't give it long enough to notice the flickering, but several people in that discussion thread I linked in the last paragraph have said they have changed their video card several times and that didn't fix the problem.

EDIT: Just hooked my MacBook Pro up to the newest flickering display. Problem exists there as well, so I doubt its the video card.

 

[bld44]

So the saga continues. I just made an appointment at the original Apple store, as the store I had a bad experience at (although its more convenient) had NO genius bar appointments for the rest of the week (that's nice), to exchange the #3 monitor as I now hear there has been a fix in the production line regarding the flickering.

But it gets better.

As I mentioned in my last post, I sent an email last week to sjobs@apple.com explaining my problematic experiences with the monitors, and the experience of how I was treated at Apple Store #2. I get a voicemail yesterday morning from someone at Apple, explaining they would like to get some more feedback on my experience and would also take a look at the monitor, and to call back at this number, extension 5. So I call back a few hours later (had morning class), and get the main number for store #1. Great, wrong freakin' store. I talk to the person at extension 5 (which is the general extension for those who are not aware) and explain I had someone call me from this number, and I'm trying to get back to them. She says nobody works here by that name and that I should try store #2, which I agreed and called. Store #2 says that she no longer works here, but is the regional representative for the stores here and at another town. NICE!@!!!

So, I guess I'm going in to take back monitor #3 and get another one. I'll be sure to request the newest builds they have, as my week 30 did not have the flickering (#3 monitor is a week 28). I'll also be sending a second email to sjobs, explaining I had someone call me from Apple who was impossible to get in touch with.

OI...

 

[bld44]

An update:

Went back to store #1 tonight to have it looked at. Had no problem replicating the issue. The genius tried to trouble shoot it, even though I told her it wasn't worth the trouble. No luck, we'll give you another. I explain that if she can get one of the newest builds, that would be great. They had ONE left in stock, a week 22. Did not offer to open it on the spot to see if this one had the problem. Get home, after about two hours, FLICKERING!

Oi, oi. Still not able to get in touch with the regional representative. Managers aren't going to help me. Would it be unreasonable at this point to email sjobs again, say I cannot get in touch with the regional rep, please ship me a brand new one, since finding one without the problem is impossible? I don't want a free monitor, I just want one that doesn't drive me nuts!