The Apple Store is an AWFUL place to shop.

[slick316]

I'm on the fence about the Apple Store (Quail Springs Mall, OKC). It's always packed with customers unless I go at some oddball hour on a Tuesday, but I don't see that as a fault of the store, per se. I've been helped by 5 or 6 people over the past few months, and I've had a few know-nothings in that group. I don't care about them, though, because I keep going back for the other employees who offer OUTSTANDING help!!!

Yes, when I feel I've been taken care of well, I grab that person's card and keep it on file, then make a point to go back and see them. THEY make the trip worthwhile. I also have to commend Apple for the atmosphere they set in the store-- I've never felt pressured on any purchase, be it the computer itself or an accessory or extended warranty. They ask what I want, I tell them, everybody leaves happy.

You mean Penn Square Mall? I wasn't aware of an Apple Store in Quail Springs.

I actually don't like the Apple Store.

I was there yesterday, hoping to find a skin for my upcoming 3G S, and there were about 5 customers there, and 250 employees. Seriously, they have too many employees, and no one acknowledged me (didn't care though, I knew what I wanted).

Previously, when I did get helped, it always bugged me how I was approached and greeted. Normally, I like to hear "Hello Sir, how may I help you today?" or something along those lines. What do I get at the Apple Store? "Hey man, what's going on?". Call me old fashioned, but I don't care for that casual attitude. That's how it starts, but for some reason, I end up feeling like this person is demeaning me. Please act professional, wear a proper uniform (untucked t-shirts and jeans don't count), and pretend that you are there to help me.

Check out is also a pain. I was there with a friend a couple months back. Store was crowded. My friend found what he wanted. He was approached by an employee "Hey man, need help?". My friend said he was ready to check out. The employee whips out some handheld thing that processes credit cards, cool idea in my opinion, if you are using credit. He wanted to pay cash, so he was pointed to the counter. There were people at the counter already, it was the genius bar, they were being helped with their computers. An employee was just standing behind the counter, looking around the store. When my friend said, "I would like to pay cash for this", he walked off, into the "back". Nice, didn't say a word, just took off. My friend almost left the charger on the counter (iphone wall charger) and left, but some lady came out from the back to help him.

Don't get me wrong, I have had some good experiences at the Apple Store. I have bought stuff locally and with the exception of the gripes I listed above, it was fine. I just don't correlate Apple products with the store, I like Apple products, but if the store was the only way to get it, I may not have so much Apple product.

 

[Shivetya]

Well if you consider my experience with the Perimeter Mall store here in Georgia...

if your after a phone or ipod your going to be in heaven, want a laptop/imac and Best Buy will seem like heaven compared to the Apple Store. I swear, the only thing they are interested in talking about are phones and iPods, more so about phones

 

[soLoredd]

I like my Apple Store but I have to make sure to go at the right times...roughly 1-3pm. Otherwise it's a pain in the ass do get anything done there. I don't mind the crowds, most of the time people are just aimlessly doing nothing and I can pretty much go right to whatever I'm there for. The problem is getting some damn help! And whenever someone does come to help, they never have a damn scanner. So, I have to wait while he uses his stupid headset to call another Appleite with a scanner to help me.

 

[leandromp]

I don't really the stores either, specially the 5th ave in New York City. It's so annoying, full of people, rude "genius" and the staff etc. In another hand, the one in 14th street is beautiful and so different, nice people but too far. Online store all the way .

They do look nice, tho.

 

[coupdetat]

Most of the employees at my local Apple store are smug *******s. And they are always spouting misinformation at uneducated customers.

 

[miles01110]

I go to my local Apple stores to buy or bitch. I do give the machines a bit more than average scrutiny and will pull up various Apple critical sites and leave them with all kinds of system preferences changed.

They don't care if you change preferences, because you can't actually get to the important ones without the admin password. A critical Apple website....oooh! Way to stick it to the man. ...

I have found the staff at Apple Stores pretty useless as well. My friends just ask me all the questions and use the Apple Store to play around of the computers, etc.

I've had mixed experiences with Apple Stores, but most have been very positive. Having lived in both the US and in Switzerland, I've found the European stores to be much more laid-back and helpful, despite the language barrier even though the staff members almost always spoke or understood English. Geniuses have given me trouble about various things, but if you keep at it you can usually get what you want. Some of them are arrogant, but they're still bound by the "customer is king" rule.

 

[DiamondMac]

I thought the Apple store was one of the best places to shop when I lived near it in Chicago

Helpful, Friendly, and easy

 

[godslabrat]

You mean Penn Square Mall? I wasn't aware of an Apple Store in Quail Springs.

You're right, cerebral flatulence on my part. Everything else stands, though.

 

[rodman109110]

I agree with the op. Shopping at the apple store is not fun. it is a pain to try to get a cashiers attention. I just wish they would go back to having a check out counter although i guess not having it keeps the floor less congested. i do like the customer service though. The Chandler Fashion Center store in Arizona has great genius bar employees in my experience. they tried everything they could to fix my computer and when all failed (3 screen replacements, 3 logic boards, and a fan) they replaced it without a problem.

 

[She]

I made the mistake of going to buy a computer the same weekend the iphone 3Gs was released

There were girls in orange t-shirts guarding the door and even though I wasn't there for an iphone they still made me line up and wait to get inside Meanwhile they were allowing people who said they just wanted to browse go straight through but they were only allowed to browse, if they wanted to buy something they could have to come back to the front door and line up

 

[Saladinos]

To date, I've bought all of my Apple products online, but with the new MBPs I wanted to go and have a look and a play before I committed. And I was shocked at the Apple Store in Kingston-Upon-Thames.

They had just one 15" MBP in stock and some kid was using the shop like an internet cafe and was browsing Facebook. I asked him if he could do it on another computer and he refused. So I waited.

After a few minutes an assistant came up to me and spoke to me. I told him I was waiting to see the MBP but some kid was using it to look at Facebook. The chap said "Oh, ok" and wandered off!!

I also couldn't help notice that there were several people looking very confused - there seemed to be no 'system' to getting to see staff. And the counter was just a mass of people - no queue at all.

So I went to John Lewis, had a good play and bought it there.

The idea is to not have locks or restrictions so you can use the machine as if it were your own, although I do believe they have now blocked facebook.

The problem isn't that they don't have enough machines, because they have a comparable number to PC stores, and they're more useful, since you can actually use them. The problem is that they're too popular.

 

[MTI]

We have 3 Apple Stores within a 20 mile span, all located in shopping malls and providing the good and bad experiences listed above. Product knowledge is not particularly deep for the floor employees, who generally have to summon someone geekier than they are, but I suppose that's what retail is all about these days.

 

[neiltc13]

The idea is to not have locks or restrictions so you can use the machine as if it were your own, although I do believe they have now blocked facebook.

The problem isn't that they don't have enough machines, because they have a comparable number to PC stores, and they're more useful, since you can actually use them. The problem is that they're too popular.

I think it would be great to see the numbers for footfall in Apple Stores compared to the number of products that actually sell. People are lured in but many probably don't realise the price until they see it in tiny print on one of those stand up card things.

 

[Sehnsucht]

I think it would be great to see the numbers for footfall in Apple Stores compared to the number of products that actually sell. People are lured in but many probably don't realise the price until they see it in tiny print on one of those stand up card things.

I think it's funny to hang out near an Apple employee talking to a family of potential customers where the kid or teen wants a Mac and is trying to talk his/her parents into buying one. The mom will usually be freaking out ("Oh, my God! Eighteen hundred dollars! You have got to be kidding me!") and the dad says something like, "I dunno Timmy, your mother and I will have to discuss this a little more." Mom asks the employee, "So, why are these Mac Apple things so expensive?" Employee starts to talk about how Macs are a better investment because of the more reliable OS and better support, and she'll interrupt him in the middle with, "Um, I have no idea what that means. I dunno anything about computers." Eventually the family will leave, still arguing, and Timmy is pissed because he didn't get his Mac.

 

[Mac_Max]

I think the more one on one way of checking out works great for small stores like the Sherman Oaks, CA store but isn't as efficient in stores like the Glendale, CA store (which at least four times as large). In part thats because more people go to the larger stores. I helped a friend pick out a 13" MBP last Friday and the store was packed twice as tightly because of a live performance that drew in a lot of lookie-loos. We were able to get someone to help us but it took 5-10 minutes. That said, it was better than Fry's (don't get me wrong, I love the store) where the sales people either run from you like the plague or want to up-sell you for the sake of their commission. I can't blame them on the latter point though, a friend of mine was fired for not <strikethrough>consistently up selling</strikethrough> er I mean not making his "commission goals."

That said it's a logistics nightmare to train employees two or three different ways so I can see why they went for a system that may be a little slower at larger stores but frees up a good quarter of the sales floor in the case of the Sherman Oaks store.

 

[NeverhadaPC]

In Ann Arbor, MI, the store is a snob-fest. Only business-men with iPhones or suits are appreciated. Everyone else has to wait until you block someone's way before they will acknowledge your existence.

I found an open accessory (keyboard cover) and decided to put it onto the keyboard of a MBP 15" to test it out and see if it worth the purchase. Within 30 seconds an employee comes over and removes the keyboard cover saying: "Now, we cannot sell it." (Keep in mind, I am 25 years of age).

The Apple Stores are filled with Mac-******s and nerdy kids who try to convince people to buy a product they know nothing about. I like going into the store and asking really detailed technical questions and have them make up answers that are wrong and illogical. They only person I like at Apple is SJ. The rest are a bunch of snob who discovered Apple only when it became a profit machine.

 

[Sun Baked]

In Ann Arbor, MI, the store is a snob-fest. Only business-men with iPhones or suits are appreciated. Everyone else has to wait until you block someone's way before they will acknowledge your existence.

I found an open accessory (keyboard cover) and decided to put it onto the keyboard of a MBP 15" to test it out and see if it worth the purchase. Within 30 seconds an employee comes over and removes the keyboard cover saying: "Now, we cannot sell it." (Keep in mind, I am 25 years of age).

The Apple Stores are filled with Mac-******s and nerdy kids who try to convince people to buy a product they know nothing about. I like going into the store and asking really detailed technical questions and have them make up answers that are wrong and illogical. They only person I like at Apple is SJ. The rest are a bunch of snob who discovered Apple only when it became a profit machine.

He probably remembered you being the annoying 25 year old twit that comes in asking stupid questions and taking up their time while not buying anything.

 

[windywoo]

The Apple Store near me is pretty good. I told them I wanted to develop for the iPhone and the guy told me straight away to go for a desktop because I'd be sitting at it for long stretches of time. He didn't try to make me buy the most expensive thing straight away. He even knew the local people who develop for iPhone and told me about an iPhone developer conference happening soon.

The next time I was in they let me test that the Macbook I bought off ebay actually powered to blue screen as described before I went ahead and bought a Magsafe charger for it.

Hmmm, I should add that I went in there when it was busy and it waws full of pretentious dicks. A bunch of people stood around saying "Vista is hard to use" (yeah point and click interfaces are beyond most people) and another person slagging off Linux as being geeky. The guy had bottle end glasses on and he was still slagging off other operating systems that don't even compete because they're free.

 

[tsa1]

apple store is cool for people that dont already own a mac. I mean theres like a total of 7-10 actual apple products in there, so i get bored within 10 mins.

Now there always happens to be hot girls there, so thats nice as well.