Me and a few of my friends had arrived at a local mall today in the morning. When we got there, there was already a fairly long line before the mall even opened. The mall opened at 6am and the Apple Store at 7am.
The lines were split into two between the Reserves and Non reserves and for every 5 reserves that got into the store, 1 unreserve would be allowed in. This seemed and WAS extremely aggravating. I will touch on that in a bit.
When we had all got in line inside of the mall, a Apple employee had made it clear to us that he could not say how many iPhones they had for "unreserved" customers and that they would let us know ahead of time if they were getting low on stock.
Fast forward to about 4 hours later, another Apple employee had started telling us that they were "extremely low on stock" and started making cut-offs for who would be able to buy one. We were then put on a "priority" list for if some of the reserved iPhones were not picked up that day. The word was that the priority people would have "priority" the following day on unsold reserved iPhones.
They continued to let the people beyond the cut-off wait in line and me and my friends continued to wait. Obviously theres always a chance for error and we were the first 10 people that were after the cut-off.
We finally got to the front of the store and it seemed for a while that we would actually get a phone. Well we were wrong. 7 and a half hours into the line, they finally got someone out of the Apple Store to CONFIRM that we wouldn't receive one.
The employees were not sympathetic towards the people who were there since the early morning. They did not apologize and offer condolence that we were SOL. They had a gray area explanation for the "priority list" for the people after the cut off. The worst part about it is that some of the people that were told they would get one (the ones ahead of the cut-off) did not get one either.
They were not lacking employees either. They clearly had some employees allocated inside of the store to service customers and some allocated to the outside to answer questions and keep people informed. In my opinion, those outside employees did a pretty crappy job at keeping people informed.
I called the store about 2 hours ago and wanted them to explain to me the "priority list" and apparently this list has nothing to do with being able to buy one of the reserved phones which was not picked up today. It was just a means of making people think that they would have a chance to get one tomorrow but instead it's just another reservation for a later shipment. The employee told me that any left-over phones would be on a first-come first-serve basis tomorrow morning to the general public.
They could have had a even ratio for letting people into the store for reserved/unreserved to cut the waiting time by a good 3-4 hours. There was no reasonable explanation as to why they gave the reserved line such a large shortcut over the unreserved line. Reserved phones had not been paid for ahead of time. It didn't really make sense.
The lines were split into two between the Reserves and Non reserves and for every 5 reserves that got into the store, 1 unreserve would be allowed in. This seemed and WAS extremely aggravating. I will touch on that in a bit.
When we had all got in line inside of the mall, a Apple employee had made it clear to us that he could not say how many iPhones they had for "unreserved" customers and that they would let us know ahead of time if they were getting low on stock.
Fast forward to about 4 hours later, another Apple employee had started telling us that they were "extremely low on stock" and started making cut-offs for who would be able to buy one. We were then put on a "priority" list for if some of the reserved iPhones were not picked up that day. The word was that the priority people would have "priority" the following day on unsold reserved iPhones.
They continued to let the people beyond the cut-off wait in line and me and my friends continued to wait. Obviously theres always a chance for error and we were the first 10 people that were after the cut-off.
We finally got to the front of the store and it seemed for a while that we would actually get a phone. Well we were wrong. 7 and a half hours into the line, they finally got someone out of the Apple Store to CONFIRM that we wouldn't receive one.
The employees were not sympathetic towards the people who were there since the early morning. They did not apologize and offer condolence that we were SOL. They had a gray area explanation for the "priority list" for the people after the cut off. The worst part about it is that some of the people that were told they would get one (the ones ahead of the cut-off) did not get one either.
They were not lacking employees either. They clearly had some employees allocated inside of the store to service customers and some allocated to the outside to answer questions and keep people informed. In my opinion, those outside employees did a pretty crappy job at keeping people informed.
I called the store about 2 hours ago and wanted them to explain to me the "priority list" and apparently this list has nothing to do with being able to buy one of the reserved phones which was not picked up today. It was just a means of making people think that they would have a chance to get one tomorrow but instead it's just another reservation for a later shipment. The employee told me that any left-over phones would be on a first-come first-serve basis tomorrow morning to the general public.
They could have had a even ratio for letting people into the store for reserved/unreserved to cut the waiting time by a good 3-4 hours. There was no reasonable explanation as to why they gave the reserved line such a large shortcut over the unreserved line. Reserved phones had not been paid for ahead of time. It didn't really make sense.
) but we where flying through the door and walk ins were pretty stagnant.
