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How the Apple Store Lost Its Luster

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Re: How the Apple Store Lost Its Luster

#121

Post by rootusrootus »

ghostly_s wrote: post #95
bunderbunder wrote: post #61

The absolute worst thing about going to the Apple store is figuring out how to flag someone down if they're busy. For that reason alone, I've stopped recommending Apple products to my older relatives. Once upon a time, the dominant factor was that the walled garden allowed them to feel less intimidated by their technology, which left them feeling like their devices were vastly more capable, even when they technically…

Obviously it sounds like y'alls experience has been different, but at the store I frequent in Chicago they have 1-2 people on staff doing this triage with everyone who walks in (though they just stand around the entrance, not at a desk). I definitely have had issues with wait time (I've mostly chalked that up to it being a very busy flagship location, but sounds like it's a larger issue), but they always check me in…

Agreed. The Portland store is very busy and I've had wait times that I think are excessive, but I do credit them with having a couple employees standing by the door to do triage. They zero in very quickly on grandma and she will get handed to the right person, but her feet will probably get tired from waiting.

Re: How the Apple Store Lost Its Luster

#122

Post by jeromegv »

jtr_47 wrote: post #23
atonse wrote: post #4

My biggest complaint about the Apple Store is the long wait times when your computer breaks. You often have to wait for a few days to even get an appointment. But the award for the most asinine thing about the Apple Store is their insistence on not having a proper area to pay for things. So people just wander around wanting to buy something and not knowing where to pay for it. And they end up wasting a lot more time…

The stores are more sterile and the employees and service is more "clinical" and less "hands on." I miss the original stores' refurbished/discount tables/bin they used to have. You could find great deals on those tables.. Oh.. one other thing that annoys the hell out of me about the stores an service. I bought a new iphone8, I asked if they could transfer the iphone5 data+ apps to my new phone. They said no, do it yo…

Beside entering your iCloud user/password, is there anything else you need to do to transfer data to a new iPhone?

Re: How the Apple Store Lost Its Luster

#123

Post by yulaow »

usaphp wrote: post #99
oldjokes wrote: post #19

I went in a few months to get a hardware thing fixed with an appointment set and nobody helped me. I waited for like 10 minutes past by appointment time and everyone was booked up. I tried pestering people but everyone was helping someone else and asked me to wait for another associate. Eventually I gave up and left the store. I'm sure their analytics never even noticed me, their data says I just never showed up for…

> I sold the old half broken macbook and switched to a thinkpad Di you switch to thinkpad just because of this service support issue? Because I don’t think thinkpad is better in service dept

Thiknpads are easily serviceable and Lenovo often just sends you a replacement component if one on your laptop fails and you know how to replace it on your own.

Apple instead is trying very hard to make everything not easily replaceable, even the failing keyboard is hard to remove for a common user

Re: How the Apple Store Lost Its Luster

#124

Post by thebigspacefuck »

bunderbunder wrote: post #61

The absolute worst thing about going to the Apple store is figuring out how to flag someone down if they're busy. For that reason alone, I've stopped recommending Apple products to my older relatives. Once upon a time, the dominant factor was that the walled garden allowed them to feel less intimidated by their technology, which left them feeling like their devices were vastly more capable, even when they technically…

Tons of other places provide support for Apple devices too. I'm sure if I went to Best Buy or Microcenter, someone would be just as likely to help me with an iPhone as a Galaxy/Pixel/Whatever.

Re: How the Apple Store Lost Its Luster

#125

Post by tonyedgecombe »

celticninja wrote: post #72
dangwu wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What B&M store lets you freely grab a $2000+ laptop and bring it to checkout on your own?

In the UK, John Lewis, Curry's, PC world. At the least you can ask someone to get one from the stock room for you and you can have it and be on your way within 10 minutes. I bought my last laptop from John Lewis in about 5 mins of entering the store.

In my experience John Lewis and Currys/PC World are at opposite ends of the customer support continuum.

Re: How the Apple Store Lost Its Luster

#126

Post by gowld »

jasode wrote: post #16

>[Angela Ahrendts'] overhaul of the Genius Bar has been especially controversial. Customers looking for technical advice or repairs must now check in with an employee, who types their request into an iPad. Then when a Genius is free, he or she must find the customer wherever they happen to be in the store. Ahrendts was determined to get rid of lineups, but now the stores are often crowded with people waiting for thei…

> The problem is that the old way tied tech support to a spatial location in the store.

Apple has been at war against its former genius for decades:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2003/04/finder/3/

Re: How the Apple Store Lost Its Luster

#127

Post by ekianjo »

usaphp wrote: post #99
oldjokes wrote: post #19

I went in a few months to get a hardware thing fixed with an appointment set and nobody helped me. I waited for like 10 minutes past by appointment time and everyone was booked up. I tried pestering people but everyone was helping someone else and asked me to wait for another associate. Eventually I gave up and left the store. I'm sure their analytics never even noticed me, their data says I just never showed up for…

> I sold the old half broken macbook and switched to a thinkpad Di you switch to thinkpad just because of this service support issue? Because I don’t think thinkpad is better in service dept

You can service pretty much everything yourself with thinkpads (except some recent models). No need to ask anyone to open up your machine as long as you have a screwdriver.

Re: How the Apple Store Lost Its Luster

#128

Post by logfromblammo »

CaptainZapp wrote: post #77
tikkabhuna wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh? Self checkouts are great! Rather than having 1 or 2 tills you can have many times that manned by the same number of people. If you don't have any alcohol you can use it without interacting with anyone at all and its much faster. That coupled with contactless payments make it super quick to buy just a few items. A "proper" checkout is still king for large shops but for people I know (late 20s), that is becoming l…

Let's just say that - and that goes especially for the UK [I'm looking at you: Boots!] - self checkout tills and me seem to be in a perpetual war. Herearound at least you scan your crap and pay. In the UK there's some shitty weight system, which I don't get and the system accuses me after every third item of being a thief and instructs me to call assistance (which cannot be found since, well, self checkout tills). Lo…

My second-favorite self-checkout peeve is when I go to Target (+grocery) and want to buy two or three things for lunch, one of which is an apple--a Fuji apple, which I have memorized as produce #4131. The apple has to be weighed, so it goes on the scale. But the scanning lasers also go across the scale plate.

If the scanning laser manages to read the little bar code on the produce sticker before I manually type in the number on it, the whole self-checkout station immediately panics and calls for a store employee to unlock it. Every. Time.

This problem has existed for years. I now trigger it on purpose whenever I'm not in a rush. There's no excuse whatsoever for a self-checkout system to grind to a halt when reading a bar code that legitimately appears somewhere in the store.

Re: How the Apple Store Lost Its Luster

#129

Post by HillaryBriss »

when my Mac had a serious problem, i was so disappointed by the low level of service at my local Apple Store that I looked on Yelp for a good one. i would have driven a hundred miles to get away from the smug, the problem denials, the repeated trips, the incompetent repairs carried out with defective used parts.

but there weren't any good ones. the Yelp ratings for all the stores in my area were just meh, or downright bad. i felt like i'd been tricked into buying an expensive, unmaintainable hunk of aluminum.

i like Macs, but those experiences made me want to avoid any more Mac purchases.

Re: How the Apple Store Lost Its Luster

#130

Post by rootusrootus »

beamatronic wrote: post #113
dmart wrote: post #89

Yes! The Genius Bar experience has been terrible (especially as a somewhat socially anxious person) the past few times I've been there. A lot of sitting while constantly busy employees buzzed around, unsure if I was waiting in the right place, hoping someone would come by and ask what I there for. It's like they're emulating the real bar experience, with a bunch of overworked and inattentive bartenders. Just give me…

Honestly I have felt many times that the Apple Store could use a vending machine for iPhones. Anything that somebody might want to just grab and go no matter how expensive.

1000% agree. I don't always want someone to walk me through setting up my iPhone. I've used them since the very first one, I don't need any help. Take my money already and let me get out. Even just picking up a set of airpods for my wife took far longer than it should have. A vending machine would be all kinds of awesome, maybe like the ones Best Buy has at the airport (which sells some Apple products like airpods, coincidentally...)
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