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It's funny that people think that all Apple store employees are knowledgeable about the products they sell. I have on more than one occasion ask a basic question and they wouldn't know the answer as they were working at a big box store. Of course they will go try to find someone else who knows the answer, but that takes time.

I have found that the majority of the staff in the store are there to ring up your purchase. Cashiers without cash registers. There are a handful that do know the products, but you can't easily differentiate them.

This is true also. There has been many a time I have asked a technical question to an employee the answer to which I already know and they have had to go to someone at the Genius bar to get help on answering. Considering their product line all their sales staff should have some technical understanding of what they sell.

In fact I applied to work at an Apple store a few years back and whilst I'm no expert I feel I have far more knowledge on Apple products then a lot of their sales staff. As it happened I didn't get hired which really baffled me as I had a lot of customer service experience. Having said that it was a blessing in disguise but I won't go into that.
 
My only issue with the Apple store is that sometimes they can be real douches. I bought a MacBook to replace a MacBook I fried, and I'm walking out the store and one of the sales people says "Welcome to the family!!!" UGH I got the worst case of douche chills in my entire life when I heard that.

Besides that I have no complaints. I see the post above the guy complains about them not knowing some technical question that he's setting them up with. I didn't have the same problem. I just had some basic technical questions and the staff knew them, they got me exactly what I needed in minutes, and I got out the door.

Oh, on my fried MacBook I knew the HD was still fine so I brought it in and they transferred my HD contents to my external drive for free. That's pretty dang good, because they had no obligation to do that, and any other company would have charged me for that.
 
I would hardly say the experience is broken. I think in part what it comes down to a lot is the sheer volume of customers to employees ratio in the stores. Although I can't say as though I have ever walked into a store and left feeling "stressed."

I will say though that I have a local Apple only reseller in my area that makes the quick transaction purchase/pickup excellent. Far superior than what I have received at the retail locations. They are courteous and very prompt when you walk in. The issue? Don't dare ask them specifics about OSX, hardware specifications, software, etc. They just don't know the answers. Ask them a question and they can only repeat what is on the specs part of the price tag to you. This is where I see the Apple Retail Store being #1. This is not to say that all resellers are this way... but that seems to be the way that the ones in my area are - including Best Buy (3 that are close).

I might feel different if there was a retail store closer to me and I visited it more often. I was there last week simply because no local reseller matched the education discount, so I drove about an hour to the Cincinnati store for my iMac. I probably waited about 20 minutes before I had someone that was able to help me - the place was packed. But as I said in my previous post - at no point would I expect them to provide other customers with a less than stellar learning/buying/whatever experience because I am in a hurry.
 
I have to agree somewhat with the OP. Apple Store employees are lazy and think they are doing you a favor. In the two Apple Stores I've been to here in the Phoenix area - Glendale and Scottsdale - you see the Apple employees in blue shirts just standing around talking to each other. The store is busier than hell, customers are asking for help, and the blue shirts are standing around joking with each other like customers don't matter.

Perhaps the experience varies from one store to another, but I have certainly seen a trend towards the retail employees getting far too smug and acting like they are better than their customers. This is just my impression of our local stores, and the experience has definitely changed for the worse since the stores opened. If I'm going to buy something from a retail Apple store versus the comfort of doing it online, I damn well better get excellent customer service and I expect to be greeted and catered to when I walk in. If I have to chase down an idle employee to do what he is paid to do (help me), there is something very wrong with the management.

There is absolutely no justification for employees to be having a gab fest with each other when there are customers looking for help. That is absolutely unacceptable and nobody should make apologies for that.
 
I have to agree with the OP in this case. I have had the exact same experience on many occasions at the Store in my town. I went in to buy an Ipad 1st generation and waited 30 minutes after giving my name at the door and telling them exactly which one I wanted. Went back to the person at the door 3 times and explained all I needed was someone to bring me the ipad and take my money. Again was told someone would be right with me. I finally left with nothing and no one cared.

Then I went in to purchase a 27" Imac and it took an hour to get it. I again told the person at the door what I wanted and all I needed was someone to bring it to me and pay. I think Apple could care less because they know if you purchase Apple product they will get their money in the end no matter where you buy it.

So now when I need something I just order it online and wait for delivery. Very sad way to run a retail outlet but I have yet to find anyone who cares. I do have to say the store is always busy so I must be the only one who is not happy with the process. Thing is most of those people aren't buying anything and just playing with stuff and I want to spend money.
 
If I have to chase down an idle employee to do what he is paid to do (help me), there is something very wrong with the management.
Agreed. That's piss-poor management at that store.

Thing is most of those people aren't buying anything and just playing with stuff and I want to spend money.
People just playing with the demos don't tie up the employees. It's people with questions that tie up the employees, and IMO, most of those folks end up making purchases.

One of the responsibilities and expectations of sales staff is to be asked questions by customers.
At the Apple Store I worked at, very few people came in and asked "technical" questions, so we didn't have a lot of "technical" Specialists.

I was one of those folks. If you came up to me and threw a geeky hardware/virtualization/networking question my way, I probably knew the answer. I had a lot of other employees come to me with those questions.

Howerver, walk up to me with "Hi! I'm really into music and want to know how many more live tracks a 13" MBP can handle recording in GarageBand vs. the white MacBook", and I'm not going to have your answer.

I'll happily run over to one of the employees in the store that's kick-ass with music on Macs (a lot of them did studio recording in their free time) and get the answer for you though. Actually, I'd probably just trade you off to that employee, since you two share music in common, which isn't something that I'm overly interested in (so I don't know much more than what the training covered for GarageBand). Just like how a lot of the music folks aren't into the geeky hardware/technical stuff, and don't really know much more than what the training covered.

So I wouldn't necessarily judge an employee that doesn't have an immediate answer for YOUR question (even if you consider it "basic"), because it's quite probable that they're really good with other aspects of Macs that other employees aren't.
 
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I have to agree somewhat with the OP. Apple Store employees are lazy and think they are doing you a favor. In the two Apple Stores I've been to here in the Phoenix area - Glendale and Scottsdale - you see the Apple employees in blue shirts just standing around talking to each other. The store is busier than hell, customers are asking for help, and the blue shirts are standing around joking with each other like customers don't matter.

Perhaps the experience varies from one store to another, but I have certainly seen a trend towards the retail employees getting far too smug and acting like they are better than their customers. This is just my impression of our local stores, and the experience has definitely changed for the worse since the stores opened. If I'm going to buy something from a retail Apple store versus the comfort of doing it online, I damn well better get excellent customer service and I expect to be greeted and catered to when I walk in. If I have to chase down an idle employee to do what he is paid to do (help me), there is something very wrong with the management.

There is absolutely no justification for employees to be having a gab fest with each other when there are customers looking for help. That is absolutely unacceptable and nobody should make apologies for that.



I have to agree with the OP in this case. I have had the exact same experience on many occasions at the Store in my town. I went in to buy an Ipad 1st generation and waited 30 minutes after giving my name at the door and telling them exactly which one I wanted. Went back to the person at the door 3 times and explained all I needed was someone to bring me the ipad and take my money. Again was told someone would be right with me. I finally left with nothing and no one cared.

Then I went in to purchase a 27" Imac and it took an hour to get it. I again told the person at the door what I wanted and all I needed was someone to bring it to me and pay. I think Apple could care less because they know if you purchase Apple product they will get their money in the end no matter where you buy it.

So now when I need something I just order it online and wait for delivery. Very sad way to run a retail outlet but I have yet to find anyone who cares. I do have to say the store is always busy so I must be the only one who is not happy with the process. Thing is most of those people aren't buying anything and just playing with stuff and I want to spend money.

Nailed it. My experience in Long Island, NY every single time. Idle employees and looong wait times.
 
I recently bough my parents a 2011 sandybridge iMac. On a sunday afternoon, I waited in my local store for 25 minutes for the sales associate to come to my station, finally I just left fed up.

Nailed it. My experience in Long Island, NY every single time. Idle employees and looong wait times.
So you waited 25 minutes in a store for help buying an iMac when employees were just standing there talking to each other? :eek:
 
I recently had the unfortunate experience of shopping at a Microsoft Store...:eek:
I was at the Apple retail store in Fashion Valley (San Diego) picking up some accessories for my iPad 2...I took a friend's son along as he needed to pick up a copy of Windows for his MBP so he could play some games that were not accessible on his Mac...
The Apple Store was indeed crowded (it was a Friday Night) and there were at least a dozen or more Apple reps on the floor helping customers but we were promptly and courteously waited on after checking in with a pleasant young iPad yielding greeter, purchased the accessories and heading out the door all within about 15 minutes after entering the crowded store...
On the way out of the mall (and in VERY close proximity to the Apple store) we noticed the (relatively) new Microsoft Store and decided to get the copy of Windows right there...
WELL! The store had 5 other customers in it, two of which were teenagers playing on the XBox demo, another two talking with the TWO Microsoft reps in the entire store and one other waiting to see a rep ahead of us. We waited about 20 minutes after being acknowledged by one of the reps helping another customer and finally left to purchase the copy of Windows at Best Buy after realizing it was going to be a LONG wait before we were helped...:mad:
This experience REALLY made me appreciate the way the Apple store works...they literally had more than 10 times the customers and we were acknowledged, waited on and out the door in 15 minutes on a busy Friday night...
I'll never go back to that Microsoft store again...bad first impression...
 
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At the Apple Store I worked at, very few people came in and asked "technical" questions, so we didn't have a lot of "technical" Specialists.

I was one of those folks. If you came up to me and threw a geeky hardware/virtualization/networking question my way, I probably knew the answer. I had a lot of other employees come to me with those questions.

Howerver, walk up to me with "Hi! I'm really into music and want to know how many more live tracks a 13" MBP can handle recording in GarageBand vs. the white MacBook", and I'm not going to have your answer.

I'll happily run over to one of the employees in the store that's kick-ass with music on Macs (a lot of them did studio recording in their free time) and get the answer for you though. Actually, I'd probably just trade you off to that employee, since you two share music in common, which isn't something that I'm overly interested in (so I don't know much more than what the training covered for GarageBand). Just like how a lot of the music folks aren't into the geeky hardware/technical stuff, and don't really know much more than what the training covered.

So I wouldn't necessarily judge an employee that doesn't have an immediate answer for YOUR question (even if you consider it "basic"), because it's quite probable that they're really good with other aspects of Macs that other employees aren't.

You make some fair points and on reflection I was probably too harsh in my words. I've been in a similar position to you where I was working in a video game store and I had other colleagues either come to me for answers to customer's questions or hand them over to me. I was happy to help out.

In my defence when it comes to buying Apple or related products my first choice is an Apple store. I do try to go on weekdays when they are less busy as on weekends their stores can be packed with customers and you do tend to wait a long time to get assistance even just to purchase an item.
 
on weekends their stores can be packed with customers and you do tend to wait a long time to get assistance even just to purchase an item.
Agreed.

Our store always did an "Express Zone" during the holidays, which was a roped-off area where there was a lot of stock brought out from the back (iPods, notebooks, etc). You could walk right up, say what you wanted, pay, and get out -- quickly.

I wish Apple would consider doing that all year, or at least during high-volume times, like weekends.
 
Agreed.

Our store always did an "Express Zone" during the holidays, which was a roped-off area where there was a lot of stock brought out from the back (iPods, notebooks, etc). You could walk right up, say what you wanted, pay, and get out -- quickly.

I wish Apple would consider doing that all year, or at least during high-volume times, like weekends.

Yes the Apple stores here in London do that too. I think they even do it during big product launches too if my memory serves me well.

I also like the fact they have plenty of demo units on display to try out. If you go to a non Apple store here looking for Apple products they usually have a tiny area and often the items on demo are old or don't work properly.
 
Yes the Apple stores here in London do that too. I think they even do it during big product launches too if my memory serves me well.

I also like the fact they have plenty of demo units on display to try out. If you go to a non Apple store here looking for Apple products they usually have a tiny area and often the items on demo are old or don't work properly.

Yup. Good point on the demo units. I was in some electronics store and saw a Windows laptop. What a novelty! I haven't seen or used one in years. I went to go mess around on it and it was so crippled by the store that I couldn't even get on the internet.

Gotta love Apple. You can do (almost) whatever you want on their hardware in their stores.
 
So you waited 25 minutes in a store for help buying an iMac when employees were just standing there talking to each other? :eek:

As stated I was greeted at the front, by the three workers chatting it up. One took my name, entered it into an iPad and asked me to wait by the iMacs. I asked how long I would be waiting, and she said she could not tell me that. She did let me know that there are a few people ahead of me in the iMac section. I waited 25 minutes, and even the two other people weren't being helped yet. I then made a logical conclusion that my wait would be more than an hour. So I left and asked the same worker up in front to take my name off the list so no one would be looking for me.

The entire time there were many workers standing idly by not helping anyone. I'm sorry, but I just don't understand this type of customer service.

Like I said, I still love the retail stores as a show room. But I think the "buying" experience is broken.

I'm sorry there are some here that think waiting an hour plus to purchase an in stock item is acceptable, and to complain is narcissistic.
 
I feel like the new iPad system is ok for people who are considering what product to buy (it creates an order and a fluid line). But it is terrible -- when the store is busy -- for those who know precisely what they want.

For example, I wanted to buy something, went to the Genius Person in the middle who controls flow -- said I knew what I wanted, he said it was in stock (iPad 2 for my mother) -- and then directed me to the iPad touchpad and I hit the notification that I wanted help.

15 minutes went by. Which was understandable, given the other people were answering questions, showing people differences between X, Y, and Z....

The flow control guy saw me, and that I hadn't moved up in the line. So he grabbed someone and had them bring me what I wanted and rang me up. And then we cancelled the notification that I wanted help.

Personally, because I'm not going to ask the sales associates for information for a number of reasons (and I think other Apple consumers are the same way), it would be better if they also had a traditional line where people could just buy things -- much like they had during the holiday season where there are one or two people behind a table with tons of the popular products behind them. That way people who know what they want can move through quickly, and people with questions can wait for the appropriate person to answer them.

[By the way, the iPad 2 buying experience was great on launch day -- other than the line -- in and out of the store in 5 minutes, once I got into the store.]
 
We don't have an Apple store in my city, but there are three nearby-ish, all about an hour away. Two (Grand Rapids and Novi) I've already decided I'm never going to.

A couple of years ago, I accidentally sent my first iPhone through the washing machine. Not only was I devastated, but I was home alone with two very small children with no land line. My husband let me borrow his work phone for the day, but that obviously was not a solution we could use for long.

I called all three of the stores, begging them to let me come in ASAP so I could just switch out my phone (for the $199 fee, of course). Two of them absolutely refused to help me because there were no appointments available. The manager at the Ann Arbor store told me, "Sure, just come by when you get a chance today, we're open till X p.m., and we'll take care of you. My name is (whatever it was) -- just ask for me." She was fantastic.

Was it the most dire emergency in the history of the world? No. But it's scary to be out of communication when you have two very little kids and your neighbors are all gone at work for the day. I really appreciated her thoughtfulness and will definitely go to that store before I visit the others in my state.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8J2 Safari/6533.18.5)

There are many stories of great product support like that, after all that's why I get my family and friends to buy Apple.

But I feel the "buying" part in the retail store needs some work.
 
I completely agree. My family and I will not go to Apple Stores anymore. Those stores are hazards. It's like a drunken Mardis Gras inside. There are always people there just standing around like they're trying to pick people up. I went once because my computer was making a strange sound (the hard drive), and when I got there, the ambient sound of the store was so loud that the genius couldn't hear it and said it would have to be shipped off. I asked if we could step into the back room because I was starting to have a panic attack and also because I thought he might have been able to hear the sound but there was some rule that.

Really, you were having a panic attack because the store was loud and there were a lot of people in there? You need some Xanax my friend.

On to the matter at hand. Having worked at a Best Buy for the last few years while I'm going to school, I agree that the Apple Store is much better for doing some research on your next purchase, getting a feel for the product, and not being hassled by salesmen (me). But if you know what you want, Best Buy is a better experience.
 
yup, apple retail stores suck ... the only things that suck more are the genius bars ... online store FTW
 
Really, you were having a panic attack because the store was loud and there were a lot of people in there? You need some Xanax my friend.

On to the matter at hand. Having worked at a Best Buy for the last few years while I'm going to school, I agree that the Apple Store is much better for doing some research on your next purchase, getting a feel for the product, and not being hassled by salesmen (me). But if you know what you want, Best Buy is a better experience.

I was on Ativan at the time I was at the Apple Store, which is a very similar benzodiazepine to Xanax. When I was 14 years old, due to severe anxiety, I was prescribed Ativan at 2 mg to take daily. If you know anything about benzodiazepines, you would understand that this was a very, very egregious error the physician made. I only realized by the time I was leaving college that I couldn't discontinue the medication. Sudden discontinuation of high levels of benzodiazepines taken over a long period of time can result in heart attacks, seizures, and death. They are considered more difficult to withdraw from than any other class of drug--far more difficult than heroin, and there is very little help and very few people who are knowledgable on how to withdraw from them. My doctor increased my dose of Ativan over the years but never mentioned anything about their risks to me or my parents. At this point, my GABA receptors are so down-regulated that it wouldn't matter how much of a benzodiazepine I took. I have three times at an oral surgeon's office been put under IV sedation and not once did I ever come close to falling asleep. It's because I'm extremely tolerant to benzodiazepines' effects. Yes, I really did have a panic attack in an Apple store, and no, because I became physically addicted to a "therapeutic" dose of Ativan as a child, taking a Xanax would not have helped. In fact, even if I were able to completely withdraw, which I am trying to do, if I were to ever take a benzodiazepine again, due to a phenomenon called kindling, taking something like a Xanax could restart what is called protracted benzodiazepine withdrawal syndrome, a continuation of withdrawal symptoms that happens long after you've stopped taking a benzodiazepine.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benzodiazepine_withdrawal_syndrome

You can see given my situation, it is a bit insensitive to both question what I said (that I was having a panic attack) and a bit reckless to recommend the very poison I am trying to rid myself of.
 
Agreed.

Our store always did an "Express Zone" during the holidays, which was a roped-off area where there was a lot of stock brought out from the back (iPods, notebooks, etc). You could walk right up, say what you wanted, pay, and get out -- quickly.

I wish Apple would consider doing that all year, or at least during high-volume times, like weekends.

Amen, it took me 25 minutes to purchase an AE5. I was standing there with the item in my hand just a couple of minutes after I entered the store. I couldn't get a soul to check me out, even though there were employees who were not busy. Finally a manager who was helping someone else noticed me and directed one of the employees who was shooting the breeze to check me out. That's all they had to do was take my money. I had done all my research online and just didn't want to spend an extra $20 shipping to get it here.
 
The invisible queue is broken, I agree. Tons of wait when you just want to buy and leave. However it ha been improving lately.
 
I was on Ativan at the time I was at the Apple Store, which is a very similar benzodiazepine to Xanax. When I was 14 years old, due to severe anxiety, I was prescribed Ativan at 2 mg to take daily. If you know anything about benzodiazepines, you would understand that this was a very, very egregious error the physician made. I only realized by the time I was leaving college that I couldn't discontinue the medication. Sudden discontinuation of high levels of benzodiazepines taken over a long period of time can result in heart attacks, seizures, and death. They are considered more difficult to withdraw from than any other class of drug--far more difficult than heroin, and there is very little help and very few people who are knowledgable on how to withdraw from them. My doctor increased my dose of Ativan over the years but never mentioned anything about their risks to me or my parents. At this point, my GABA receptors are so down-regulated that it wouldn't matter how much of a benzodiazepine I took. I have three times at an oral surgeon's office been put under IV sedation and not once did I ever come close to falling asleep. It's because I'm extremely tolerant to benzodiazepines' effects. Yes, I really did have a panic attack in an Apple store, and no, because I became physically addicted to a "therapeutic" dose of Ativan as a child, taking a Xanax would not have helped. In fact, even if I were able to completely withdraw, which I am trying to do, if I were to ever take a benzodiazepine again, due to a phenomenon called kindling, taking something like a Xanax could restart what is called protracted benzodiazepine withdrawal syndrome, a continuation of withdrawal symptoms that happens long after you've stopped taking a benzodiazepine.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benzodiazepine_withdrawal_syndrome

You can see given my situation, it is a bit insensitive to both question what I said (that I was having a panic attack) and a bit reckless to recommend the very poison I am trying to rid myself of.


Awesome post. Hang in there!
 
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