And customers needs to remember that the issue isn't always a bad product and stop demanding a replacement because the whatever cost X and they have spent Y at apple.
I deal with a lot of Apple products due to work and we tend to have a lot of drops etc. I have heard folks yell at Apple staff because Apple doesn't know their yahoo password, demand a replacement because this or that non Apple app isn't working.
Just the other day I heard a guy screaming profanities at a young girl because his kids dropped his brand new iPhone in the pool and he didn't have Apple Care or a backup. Funny thing, I was in that same store a couple of weeks ago picking up some new cables etc and that guy was buying his phone. Very unique looking guy, hard to forget. I heard him tell the guy first that he didn't need Apple care cause he never messes up his phones and a few minutes later that he didn't want to use iCloud cause the NSA can read all his stuff and he backs up to his computer every night. Oops.
I suspect that the geniuses have a better grasp of whether folks are trying to abuse the warranty than any of us would. After all they see the faces, the names, the history notes and most importantly the items. We can tin foil and claim they are mandated to say no so Apple doesn't lose money blah blah but we aren't the ones that just opened up a phone that won't power on to find water and rust inside but the customer is screaming he never got it wet. Clearly someone did. The geniuses can also see cut connector cables, non Apple parts etc. and at least in my area there are enough third party 'repair' shops and resellers around to justify checking. Not to mention places like China were knockoffs are everywhere.
Yeah they know, but again, the point of the whole business model works based on that mass scale "gamble" which tells people: come buy from here, we will never question your returns or exchanges, just try us. We are so sure you will love us that we can bank on that lenient exchange policy to not only not bankrupt us but give us even more sales in the long run.
The genius has no priority to deny an exchange. They never HAD the sale if it wasn't for that return policy.
The value comes from when you satisfy the customer through and through, truly.
This genius never HAD my hard earned 1-2 thousand dollars in the first place. The only reason they earned that money from me is BECAUSE of their superior business model.
You can't refuse to return something that you never would have sold if your stance on returning wasn't as such.
Every person who purchased an Apple product could return the same product 3 times and the company would still make profit.
So such matters are outside of the scope of a genius and his discretion should simply be on a basis of protecting from mass abuse schemes or loopholes of abuse, and such scams are rare.
Of course there are some hard rules and time limits, but for the most part, as long as you gave them a couple thousand dollars in the last year or two lately, they should shut up and smile and exchange and do mostly whatever is asked within reason.
They should see such customer arrogance as a sign of extreme examples of how potent the Apple luxury sale allure is.
You got customers coming in acting like over entitled idiots once in a while? -You're doin something right in the big picture.