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Geniuses never cease to amaze with their incompetence

thirdeyeopen666

thirdeyeopen666

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Sep 16, 2007
460
128
Upgraded to a 3G last thursday... went away for the weekend and found that my new headphones were defective. Sound comes out about 75% lower on the right side than the left... so I called the store, told them I'd be back in town today and wanted to exchange my headphones for working ones. They make me make a Genius bar appointment. Ridiculous, but fine... I'm used to it. So I get to the bar and I'm real nice to the 'genius,' as always. I explain the situation... he does the typical genius thing where he treats you like an imbecile and insists it MUST be your fault. Couldn't possibly have been a set of bad headphones. Explained to him I'd tested the headphones with other devices, and that my other headphones worked fine with my new iPhone, so it obviously wasn't the phone. So he puts the headphones on himself and says with a frown, "You're going to think I'm crazy, but they are working just fine for me." I told him I indeed thought he was crazy and that I'd had enough and wanted him to just replace the obviously defective headphones. I put them back on myself just ot be sure, and of course, they were working just as poorly as before. I calmly, but firmly explained to him that he was being difficult for no reason and that it was plain to anyomne that the headphones weren't working properly. So he puts them back on and says that he thinks they are fine but since i "waited so patiently for my appointment, he'd go ahead and replace them as a favor." I thanked him but got indignant as I'm tired of this sort of behavior at the Genius bar. The product is defective, you're not doing me a goddamn favor by replacing it. You are *required* to. So after I explained my thoughts on the whole thing to him, he says OHHHH you meant that they were just quieter on one side... well you said they were just broken, so I assumed that they were working fine when I heard sound coming out. I mean jesus, why the hell does Apple even bother calling them Geniuses? Is it permanently opposite day at the Apple store?
 
I've never had a reason to gripe about a Genius, but like any retailer Apple aren't going to have a consistently great set of staff.

What is absolutely bizarre to me is the policy of forcing a Genius Bar appointment for the return of any defective product. For me it means I have to wait 48 hours just to explain what my defect is - and I've never had a Genius dispute my diagnosis - so it's effectively a 48 delay to a resolution.

I don't know any other retailer that enforces a similar policy, and I'm sure it's expensive for Apple - just consider the costs in staff time and lost opportunity over a pair of headphones!
 
Urgh I can't even read that post. It's like text vomit, dumped on a page with no format. Paragraphs are your friend :eek:
 
adom said:
Urgh I can't even read that post. It's like text vomit, dumped on a page with no format. Paragraphs are your friend :eek:
Click to expand...

It's called an angry rant. Sorry you don't feel like reading it, but I'm definitely not going to go back and format it for ya ;)
 
Throughout my experience at the Apple Store I have learned one truth: Genius Bar employees aren't geniuses.
 
You know, i know it isn't your fault, but i'm sure that Genius has seen all sorts of things in his career at the Apple store. He probably thought you were being picky. He could have a hearing problem. Hell, he could of been having a bad day. You never know.
 
Roessnakhan said:
Throughout my experience at the Apple Store I have learned one truth: Genius Bar employees aren't geniuses.
Click to expand...

Like anywhere else it is a mixed bag, but everyone should have to walk in the shoes of an Apple Genius for at couple weeks before they judge. Working a "helpdesk" is very often a thankless job.

Many folks who come in to see a Genius are having a problem with their device, unhappy about it and sometimes rude or belligerent if things are not going as they expect or as quickly as they expect they should. If you've ever worked in any type of helpdesk / customer service role you know what I am talking about. It is a job that can test the patience of even the most professional individual.

It is always best to be as polite as possible and clearly state the issue at hand. If it appears there is a mis-communication on either side, patiently restate or rephrase the issue and if that doesn't work politely ask to speak with another Genius or even a manager.

There should never be a reason to raise your voice or use vulgarity (as in the OPs story above) and doing so practically never helps your case. In fact, I've seen managers turn customers away, even though the customer was technically correct, because of the customer's attitude and behavior.

Be nice, patient and polite and you'll be surprised; you can get practically anything.
 
I've had only the best experiences with the geniuses. My MacBook Pro had aluminum pitting on the case as well as wear and tear on the trackpad and some keys (not really Apple's fault) and they volunteered to replace my keyboard, trackpad, entire aluminum top case, and mouse button. From my experience if you go in there and tell them the problem nicely they treat you just fine (I went in there for a completely different reason). They've always gone beyond anything I expected. But. This is a human to human thing, you can't judge them all and I can't either. It all depends. You should probably just call AppleCare on the phone and have them mail you the headphones next time.
 
I have to say that I agree with the OP.

I thought that an Apple store opening in Glasgow would be great and that the Genius bar would be a revelation in problem solving.

Not exactly the case, for me anyway. My experience has been rather disappointing.

First of all I was supplied MacBook restore disks with my MacBook Pro but didn't notice till almost a year after I bought it and rather than arranging for me to get new disks after taking them in I still had to go and chase apple for another 2 weeks just to get my disks.

On another occasion, a rather unhelpful 'genius' managed to give me three seconds of his precious time to answer a very simple question, he got it wrong, I knew it was wrong but I wasn't going to argue with him, he was fairly rude.
 
welshy1812 said:
On another occasion, a rather unhelpful 'genius' managed to give me three seconds of his precious time to answer a very simple question, he got it wrong, I knew it was wrong but I wasn't going to argue with him, he was fairly rude.
Click to expand...

Why were you asking if you knew the answer anyway? :confused:
 
to the OP,

By your own account, the Genius misunderstood your complaint. He was listening for zero sound, but there was sound. Where's the crime in a little misunderstanding? Maybe you need to work on your communication skills in moments of frustration? I've never had a bad experience at a Genius Bar, and I've gotten what I came for 99.9% of the time.

I have had great success getting what I want from customer service by approaching the situation as if the employee IS doing me a favor. I just pretend that they're not getting paid for what they do. Rarely have I not gotten what I sought, or had to fly off the handle. More often than not, I am rewarded for treating it like a favor, with said favor.
 
I've always found Apple staff to be great. Though, I did have one a few weeks ago, that couldn't see the glaring obvious dead pixels and when he found them explained to me they were 'dead sun-pixels' Do sub pixels even exist on and if they did wouldn't if still be a defective pixel?!! hehe
 
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