What a difference a Store makes!!!!

[uniforms]

Well, I was having a problem with the keyboard light sensor on my Macbook Air B with SSD. I thought of taking it to my local Apple store which would have been Short Hills NJ. But after my last time there I thought different. Here is what happened before. I had a Rev A with HHD, and had a cable problem with the sound. It took them a week and a half to repair it. And I am a pro care member to boot! So when rev B came out, I had to have it, so I bought it there. After awhile I noticed I was getting marks at the top of the screen bezel from the mouse button rubbing when the lid was closed and transporting it around. Always in a protected padded bag. They accused me of dropping it. Which I have never done. They also said if I wanted that done it would be at my cost. I even called Customer relations and they said they had to go with what the Short Hills store said. So I just learned to live with the marks. Then last week my keyboard would no longer light up. This time after my poor service from Short Hills I decided to go to the Apple Store in Whitehall, Lehigh Valley PA. It was an hour drive but from the time I got there till I just picked up my machine, it was WELL worth the drive.

When I first got there they took me EARLY for my appointment. The tech said there could be several things that were causing my problem, all which would require them to order parts. The tech said he would order the parts and call me when they arrived to bring in the machine. To my amazement the day after the tech called to say parts were in and bring in my baby. So brought it in Sunday and the next day it was ready!!!!! They even replaced the bezel the other store said was damaged. And yes...even fixed the play that had developed with the screen. They didn't accuse me of anything but taking perfect care of my air. So what a difference a store can make. I left feeling what I am sure Apple would want all of its customers to feel....like they were treated with respect and a mac lover. Everyone I had dealt with at this store was incredible! So if you have poor service from a store, my advice, go to somewhere else who will take care of you. I will have to send a letter off to Apple to let them know of this too.

Can't wait till Rev C!!!!!!!

 

[Scottsdale]

Congratulations on your great experience. We should all be treated like royalty instead of the way we normally get treated. Nice to hear, but fairly rare, when good things happen at Apple stores. Unfortunately, I have had far more bad experiences than acceptable experiences. I hate the ignorance and arrogance, the two just don't go together anywhere as well as at the Apple Store.

I said this the other day, I think we should do a thread on stores. We could all share which stores in metro areas have good support and which ones are rather arrogant and unhelpful.

 

[aaquib]

I said this the other day, I think we should do a thread on stores. We could all share which stores in metro areas have good support and which ones are rather arrogant and unhelpful.

Agreed. It would be awesome if we had a thread like that.

 

[HLdan]

I said this the other day, I think we should do a thread on stores. We could all share which stores in metro areas have good support and which ones are rather arrogant and unhelpful.

I agree with you that we as customers from any type of retail environment or public relations should be treated with respect however I think you're not being quite fair about the arrogant stuff. I read this time and time again on the forums that Apple's geniuses are arrogant jerks and so on.... I live within 20 minutes of 4 Apple retail stores. I have had service and purchases in all of them and all the years I have been going there I had never had a single problem with any of their employees.
I have received a lot of respect. Upon reading a lot of the MR posters' negative comments about the Apple store employees I have come to the conclusion that many of them are causing the negative responses that they say allegedly are happening from the geniuses.
So many people here are quick to remind us how much money they spent on their Mac as if we already don't know and I'll bet that gets transpired to the Mac genius before even stating their issue which is most likely not stated very humbly.

Now, I don't mean to generalize this but I have worked in retail for 20 years and I know when customers come in with a problem, they are already defensive before saying the first word out of their mouth and then the first thing comes out of their mouth is how much they paid for this item da da da....Well, the store already knows how much they paid so this generally puts the store in defense mode.
As a customer I've been guilty of doing this myself. The MR crowd here are no angels, IMO a lot of people here start the arrogance first.

 

[kingtj]

Probably only of limited value, though, unfortunately

I know here in St. Louis, MO, for example, our West County Mall Apple Store has given me both top-notch AND horrible experiences, depending on the situation.

Most of the time, I don't think problems at an Apple Store are caused by management deciding that's how they want it to run. Rather, the "Geniuses" seem to have a fair amount of leeway to decide how they want to treat a customer - so they can make or break most of these trips for service.

On the whole though, I've noticed that Apple Store personnel are generally less informed/knowledgeable about their computers than they were 4-5 years ago. (A good friend of mine who worked at an Apple Store back then agrees with me on this completely, BTW.)

They're overrun with people simply interested in their iPods or iPhones now, and that means an employee can care quite little about Apple's computer products and still perform a big chunk of their job properly. (Years ago, it was much more focused on the Mac itself, so even though Apple liked to hire people with no previous computer sales experience, they had to be people *interested* in the Mac, or they wouldn't make it there long.)

I said this the other day, I think we should do a thread on stores. We could all share which stores in metro areas have good support and which ones are rather arrogant and unhelpful.

 

[HLdan]

I know here in St. Louis, MO, for example, our West County Mall Apple Store has given me both top-notch AND horrible experiences, depending on the situation.

Most of the time, I don't think problems at an Apple Store are caused by management deciding that's how they want it to run. Rather, the "Geniuses" seem to have a fair amount of leeway to decide how they want to treat a customer - so they can make or break most of these trips for service.

On the whole though, I've noticed that Apple Store personnel are generally less informed/knowledgeable about their computers than they were 4-5 years ago. (A good friend of mine who worked at an Apple Store back then agrees with me on this completely, BTW.)

They're overrun with people simply interested in their iPods or iPhones now, and that means an employee can care quite little about Apple's computer products and still perform a big chunk of their job properly. (Years ago, it was much more focused on the Mac itself, so even though Apple liked to hire people with no previous computer sales experience, they had to be people *interested* in the Mac, or they wouldn't make it there long.)

I agree with you 100%. Apple is hiring just "bodies" to stand on the floor rather they know anything about the product or not and I'm sure Apple is not training any of them to do more than greet customers. Unfortunately the customers walk in expecting to speak to "Mac geniuses" and unfortunately there's hardly anyone there anymore that know anything about Macs. This is what most likely causes the annoyance from customers.