131–140 of 288 posts
I was there to spend upwards of $5000 on new hardware and I knew exactly what I wanted - I just needed to pay for it and have someone hand it to me. Total transaction time was over an hour and I would have left if I didn’t need it that day.
>[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…
> If an Apple exec wants to bring back the dedicated area for the Genius Bar, how does one avoid the logistical nightmare of those lines? You still have to work within the same finite retail floor space. The 'logistical nightmare of those lines' is just how every other store that has a similar problem operates. It maybe wasn't great, but the alternative of having people randomly milling round the stores (and usually…
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…
I know it's just my experience, but it looks like this thread (as the article) is all about personal experiences. I had four time the same issue with a MBP 2011, the HDD cable was failing again ad again. First time they replaced it, next time they replaced the cable plus the HDD, third time they replaced cable plus logicboard, fourth I got a new MBP 2013. All for free, without Apple Care. Every time I got my laptop b…
Say, they failed to make the cable protected enough in the initial design. During the first service, they should just not replace the cable, they should also add the protection, so that the issue doesn't happen again for that customer.
If you google around, you'll see that this is a known problem and some people were even modding their MBPs proactively, to avoid this specific cable issue, caused by wrong design, to happen at inappropriate time.
>[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…
If you want people to sit around all over the store in a haphazard fashion, you need to somehow provide these things. Without them, you will massively increase customer anxiety and therefore impatience.
What’s the point?
Hmm, yes. After work I thought I'd 'just' pass at an Apple store and either buy a new battery or let it quickly replace. No chance: first came the appointment, then I learned that no batteries would be sold and an exchange needed about a week. What now? Ended with buying an Anyoneer at Amazon for a third of the price and not feeling too happy with Apple. (But it started before, there is a reason I needed a new battery for my old (2013 highly 'loved') MBA and bought a new Thinkpad).
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
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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…
The "Lincoln Park" store (sorry, but North and Clybourne was never Lincoln Park) is excellent for service. Michigan Avenue is an absolute disaster. A bit part of it is the relative traffic levels. LP has a fraction of the customer load that MA has and that makes all the difference.
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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?
Without it what service can they provide?
For me the apple store has basically come to mean: - Very long lines/overcrowded store - It's all full of Apple Watches and stuff like that and trivial luxury accessories - Not enough Macs anymore - None of the really cool displays they used to have like a Mac Pro set up for music studio or video work complete with a camera or midi controller or other instrument plugged in. - For some reason they always smell like BO…
I agree with your observations about the Apple store, but I wouldn't say the MS stores are run better. At the MS store you can get fast service, but thats mostly because it's empty. The floor staff descends upon you like hungry vultures when you enter, and you can't get rid of them. Thats what I've experienced at the Austin one anyway.
Mostly my observation is the way they run events and stuff seems very cool.
E.x. letting the kids come in and play Fortnite or do coding classes. Seems to always be free.
Then they've got VR demos or XBoxes setup with car cockpits..