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January 25, 2018

One person who views her Apple Store experience as chaotic.

Another person responds saying the situation she described was actually good customer service.

Part of the initial confusion is that even though she is an Apple customer she hasn't figured out that the stores (or, all the Apple stores I've been to) have an employee near the front door who handles triage. The first time I encountered that I thought it was pretty bad service too, because what I saw was an employee standing there doing nothing, who offered to help me, but then wouldn't help me but sent me to another employee. Why they don't give that employee a hat saying "Triage" or something everyone could understand, I just don't know.

As for where to line up for a cash register?! I want to ask how old that author is and has she ever been in an Apple Store before. The customer stands still. The Apple Store will make an employee appear magically at your side and if you are really integrated into Apple, you won't even have to pull out your credit card. The great borg already knows it. I don't know what happens if you want to pay in cash. I've never seen that in an Apple Store. Maybe a Federal Reserve Employee will appear next to you to make sure all your bills are clean and crisp.

I got the glass replaced on my 6S Plus once. I set up an appointment online. Went in. Triage guy sent me to hang out around the Genius Bar. Someone called my name. Took my phone. I don't know how long I waited, but not very long at all. The Genius brought my phone back to me, fixed. I would expect that to go less smoothly if I went into a busy Manhattan store with no appointment.

The one serious bitch I ever had with the La Quinta Apple Store was when I bought online (probably my Mini) and had my purchase sent to the store for pick up. The instructions I got from Apple were to show them a printout which identified me and my purchase. I think I went through three employees before one understood what I was asking for. The second time I did that, it went flawlessly, so maybe somebody got some training in the interim.

Filed under Shopping | permalink | January 25, 2018 at 07:53 PM

Comments

I had an old iPhone (5, I think) that I wanted to put a Telstra SIM into when I was in Sydney. Couldn't get it to work. So took it to the Apple Store and even though I hadn't bought it there, not spend a dollar, they unlocked it and reset it so that I could do it. The triage guy brought out his own laptop to do all this.

I've not had any other problems with my various iPhones (I had a 3, 4, 5, 6plus, and now a 7plus) and the only time I had to bring any of those in for repair was when there was a bug in the hardware that Apple was fixing for free. The triage guy sent me to a table to wait, someone came over, took the phone, sent me to another area, and I got the phone back 10 minutes later.

Finally, when I bought my iPad, I went into the Apple Store at Stratford (where the Olympic Village was) and, as I knew exactly what I want, one of the floor guys listened to me and took down the details. A minute later another guy came over with the boxed iPad. Payment was online, and I walked in and out in 5 minutes.

I've liked the service I've had when I had to go into an Apple Store. YMMV, of course.

Posted by: Chris Hansen at Jan 26, 2018 12:56:05 PM

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