Speaking as an ex-genius I can say that under Angela I always got the feeling that she resented having support staff dirtying her gorgeous retail environment. Training time disappeared. The highly trained Geniuses got annoyed at spending hours being little more than check-in receptionists. The new design of the store created an environment so loud, that you and your support customer had to literally shout at each other to be heard over the din.
The Genius position, once so valued and given responsibility, became little more than an iPad to customer interface.
Thanks! That was always my theory as I saw my Apple Store devolve into something I found unsatisfying, below par and uncomfortable. I appreciate the confirmation.
Hopefully, Apple can bring them back up to the level you remember. We will all be winners!
I've never really cared for the Apple Store. It was (and probably still is) great if you're a less experienced user who needs some hand-holding, but not so great if you're experienced and just want to get your problem solved. Getting rid of the Genius Bar was an idiotic move. Same with the stupid "no cash register" thing. Not every employee can check you out, so you find yourself wandering around until you find an available person who can (which can take a long time). If you're just looking to buy something and know what you want, the Apple Store is the worst place to go.
Without the Genius Bar, you know longer know where to go for service either. Service and sales people wear the same shirts, so you have no idea who is who. If the check-in person isn't on their game, the whole experience degenerates rapidly. I recently visited an Apple Store with my dad because his iPhone had died. Despite the store not being very busy, we waited for over an hour after our appointment time. The place was buzzing with staff, but they always seemed to buzz right by the people growing old at the tables waiting for help. The whole Apple Store experience feels utterly confusing and miserable now.
I completely forgot about the stupidity of the no cash register move. It turns a simple purchase into a huge hassle.
With ApplePay on Apple Watch: DIng! "Have a nice Day!", "Thank you! You too!"
I find this article fascinating, simply to hear that others are seeing the changes I have seen for years. I started working for Apple in 2013, and left in 2016. I started in AppleCare doing basic technical support, and ultimately was a trainer in the AppleCare department. When I started at Apple, the atmosphere was incredible. Everyone I worked with was very technically advanced in all operating systems/services. We helped everyone, no matter what the issue was. We offered exceptions (CS Codes) multiple times per day to please customers of all backgrounds. Our managers were as helpful as could be, and would help out anytime one of us didn't have a solution for a customer's problem. It would not be out of the ordinary to spend a couple of hours with a difficult customer, simply to solve their issue the right way. I remember the day Ahrendts started at Apple. She sent a massive memo to all employees essentially lining out her plan to dismantle the Apple Retail Stores, and turn them into Burberry-esque "Apple" stores. I can't remember a single person, internally, that was happy with her being at Apple. Her ideas transcended into the other arms of Apple. Our SOPs (standard operating procedures) quickly changed from customer satisfaction, to red-tape laden BS, that was more fine tuned to "sounding good/looking good" to the customer, rather than helping them. Our managers became used car salesmen overnight, and turned our teams into Apple cheerleaders, rather than technical support agents. The new hires I saw on the training side were abysmal. Our training material was 90% cosmetic, and 10% technical. Case and point, in the old days, when a customer would call Apple, an agent would listen to their problem, and immediately begin working on a solution. The new system was, "listen to the problem, then acknowledge the problem, relate to the problem with your own understanding, assure the customer you can fix the problem, then probe to see if you can sell other services/goods that relate to the customer" and after all of that, then try to fix the customer's issue. I can't tell you how many fed up customers I dealt with, having to listen to "robotic-speech" from the non-technical drones Apple was hiring. I finally left Apple after joining yet another team with an imbecile for a manager. Apple's internal hiring process was 100% based on your looks, and your level of fake, over-hype ability. If you had tattoos, gauges in your ears, and could scream for half an hour about how the new Apple Watch was the greatest product on planet earth, then you could be a manager at Apple. If you were technically educated, and dealt with people in a rational manner, you were barley good enough to clean the bathrooms at my campus.
Ahrendts is not the only one to blame for this evolution. Myself, and many others I worked with had a silent disdain for Tim Cook. As intelligent as he is at running Apple's finances, he lacks the creativity, and charisma needed to be the face, and leader of the company. I dare someone to think of an exciting new product, or service that has come about under the Cook administration. Apple's idea of "new and exciting" is slapping a larger, or smaller screen size on a version of iOS. When Apple got into the watch industry, and bowed down to every celebrity that would slap an Apple Watch on their wrist, I knew the days of the old Apple were long gone. Under Cook, Apple has slowly gone down the same path Samsung, and Microsoft have. Gone are the exciting days of product launches, shrouded in secrecy. Gone are the days of going to your Apple Store to pick up a shiny new product on launch day. Gone are the days of calling AppleCare and getting a real human on the line who doesn't speak like an Ahrendts/Cook robot. Gone are the days of educated, passionate people being the face of Apple. Now, it's all about how many tattoos you have, and if you own a pair of sneakers and skinny jeans. In my opinion, the Apple Store decline is only the beginning. There is a storm brewing around Apple that will ultimately end in their demise, as long as Cook is at the helm.
Just one former employees opinion.
I don’t think Angela was responsible for AppleCare support was she?
She was responsible for the support staff you talked to in the store about using it.
I find this article fascinating, simply to hear that others are seeing the changes I have seen for years. I started working for Apple in 2013, and left in 2016. I started in AppleCare doing basic technical support, and ultimately was a trainer in the AppleCare department. When I started at Apple, the atmosphere was incredible. Everyone I worked with was very technically advanced in all operating systems/services. We helped everyone, no matter what the issue was. We offered exceptions (CS Codes) multiple times per day to please customers of all backgrounds. Our managers were as helpful as could be, and would help out anytime one of us didn't have a solution for a customer's problem. It would not be out of the ordinary to spend a couple of hours with a difficult customer, simply to solve their issue the right way. I remember the day Ahrendts started at Apple. She sent a massive memo to all employees essentially lining out her plan to dismantle the Apple Retail Stores, and turn them into Burberry-esque "Apple" stores. I can't remember a single person, internally, that was happy with her being at Apple. Her ideas transcended into the other arms of Apple. Our SOPs (standard operating procedures) quickly changed from customer satisfaction, to red-tape laden BS, that was more fine tuned to "sounding good/looking good" to the customer, rather than helping them. Our managers became used car salesmen overnight, and turned our teams into Apple cheerleaders, rather than technical support agents. The new hires I saw on the training side were abysmal. Our training material was 90% cosmetic, and 10% technical. Case and point, in the old days, when a customer would call Apple, an agent would listen to their problem, and immediately begin working on a solution. The new system was, "listen to the problem, then acknowledge the problem, relate to the problem with your own understanding, assure the customer you can fix the problem, then probe to see if you can sell other services/goods that relate to the customer" and after all of that, then try to fix the customer's issue. I can't tell you how many fed up customers I dealt with, having to listen to "robotic-speech" from the non-technical drones Apple was hiring. I finally left Apple after joining yet another team with an imbecile for a manager. Apple's internal hiring process was 100% based on your looks, and your level of fake, over-hype ability. If you had tattoos, gauges in your ears, and could scream for half an hour about how the new Apple Watch was the greatest product on planet earth, then you could be a manager at Apple. If you were technically educated, and dealt with people in a rational manner, you were barley good enough to clean the bathrooms at my campus.
Ahrendts is not the only one to blame for this evolution. Myself, and many others I worked with had a silent disdain for Tim Cook. As intelligent as he is at running Apple's finances, he lacks the creativity, and charisma needed to be the face, and leader of the company. I dare someone to think of an exciting new product, or service that has come about under the Cook administration. Apple's idea of "new and exciting" is slapping a larger, or smaller screen size on a version of iOS. When Apple got into the watch industry, and bowed down to every celebrity that would slap an Apple Watch on their wrist, I knew the days of the old Apple were long gone. Under Cook, Apple has slowly gone down the same path Samsung, and Microsoft have. Gone are the exciting days of product launches, shrouded in secrecy. Gone are the days of going to your Apple Store to pick up a shiny new product on launch day. Gone are the days of calling AppleCare and getting a real human on the line who doesn't speak like an Ahrendts/Cook robot. Gone are the days of educated, passionate people being the face of Apple. Now, it's all about how many tattoos you have, and if you own a pair of sneakers and skinny jeans. In my opinion, the Apple Store decline is only the beginning. There is a storm brewing around Apple that will ultimately end in their demise, as long as Cook is at the helm.
Just one former employees opinion.
This says it all. Insightful in every aspect I assumed/suspected, as a customer. Thanks.
The fundamental problem A=A was trying to solve is that as the iPhone exploded to unprecedented popularity, the Apple Store became overcrowded with people seeking service to the point where no one wanted to step foot in the store unless they had to get a repair. The only way to turn the store into something other than an iPhone service center was to somehow reduce the number of people going there exclusively for a service-related problem. Thus, they ended walk-in Genius Bar support and finally even got rid of the eponymous bar itself, which had the goal of eliminating the lines of people doing nothing but waiting their turn for a seat at the counter.
The other way to reduce service-related foot traffic was to discourage people from bringing their broken devices in to begin with by emphasizing online support for anything that was not explicitly a hardware failure. But if they had to bring their device in, try to reduce that visit time to as little as possible by discouraging on-site repairs which of course reduced the number of people just hanging around the store waiting for their device to be fixed. If the problem couldn’t be quickly fixed, it would go to a service center and they would let you know when you can pick it up.
The other way to reduce foot traffic is to of course discourage in-store sales at all. It seems counter-intuitive, but if they wanted to turn the store into a pleasant shopping experience and a place where you learn something new, there had to be less people in the stores. So emphasize online sales, and turn the store into a place where you can try out new hardware before making a decision, and learn something new with their classes and such.
These were all logical business decisions, but the problem is that all of these steps designed to discourage walk-in support traffic failed, so we ended up with the worst of both worlds: An Apple Store that was actively trying to discourage you from walking in to get support, but you were doing so anyway out of necessity. No wonder people are dissatisfied with the result.
Every company has disgruntled employees. But not every company is Apple where employees can snitch to Mark Gurman and get a write up in Bloomberg. The biggest complaint about Apple stores seems to be that they’re too crowded. But if Jason Snell is right the new person heading retail is tasked with pushing sales. That might have been one reason Angela left.
I am not sure how you determine "the biggest complaint," but judging by comments and my own personal experience, the stores being too crowded is not it at all. How about "axing the genius bars" resulting in "shoppers started having trouble getting the right person's attention in speedy fashion?" That is the DMV effect. Instead of going to the genius bar where you would be helped immediately or queued (perhaps with your place in the queue on a display), you find someone in an Apple shirt. They direct you to some table towards the rear of the store where you are directed to sit and wait. After waiting a bit, another Apple shirt comes to check you in. A tech in an Apple shirt goes around looking for the person they're supposed to serve - they've never seen you before so they're wandering around like someone looking for a blind date in a crowded restaurant. All the while you're sitting there wondering who will help you and when. Perhaps it's just older folks, but not everyone is comfortable buying things from the app and just walking out of the store like a shoplifter. It's nice to have that option, but a clear place to pay and person to accept payments wasn't such as bad thing.
In fact, my local DMV does it a little better than the Apple Store. When you go into the DMV, you go immediately to a sort of information desk where they determine the service you require, which documents you need to have with you to get that service, and which line you need to get in. You get a number, and you are served when your number comes up. The lines are always long and nobody likes to go to the DMV, but this makes the best of a difficult situation. At least you know it's fair and where you are in line. Last time I knew it would be long enough that I ran a few quick errands.
I didn't blame AA too much as she came from a different sort of background. I characterized Burberry as a retailer of expensive sweaters in a comment to a previous article on this subject and somebody took exception to that. Ok, they're an expensive retailer of all kinds of garments, makeup, and other stuff. My point having been and being that you don't have people coming in for on-the-spot repairs of a sweater or an overnight bag so the after sales service requirements are a bit different. Cook is not Jobs and doesn't always seem to know how to pick people or what to do with them. The bozo explosion is in the design office now. Ives thinks he is some kind of Da Vinci but he's still running on Jobs' fumes. It's past time for Apple to do something interesting and take some design risks. Perhaps AA could have shaken up that part of the company.
I've never really cared for the Apple Store. It was (and probably still is) great if you're a less experienced user who needs some hand-holding, but not so great if you're experienced and just want to get your problem solved. Getting rid of the Genius Bar was an idiotic move. Same with the stupid "no cash register" thing. Not every employee can check you out, so you find yourself wandering around until you find an available person who can (which can take a long time). If you're just looking to buy something and know what you want, the Apple Store is the worst place to go.
Without the Genius Bar, you know longer know where to go for service either. Service and sales people wear the same shirts, so you have no idea who is who. If the check-in person isn't on their game, the whole experience degenerates rapidly. I recently visited an Apple Store with my dad because his iPhone had died. Despite the store not being very busy, we waited for over an hour after our appointment time. The place was buzzing with staff, but they always seemed to buzz right by the people growing old at the tables waiting for help. The whole Apple Store experience feels utterly confusing and miserable now.
I completely forgot about the stupidity of the no cash register move. It turns a simple purchase into a huge hassle.
With ApplePay on Apple Watch: DIng! "Have a nice Day!", "Thank you! You too!"
Some of the people going to an actual physical store would not be comfortable using Apple Pay on a watch. That's why they went out to a store in the first place rather than just order the item online. You all probably personally know some people (perhaps with AOL email addresses) that manage to use computers for email and to renew their prescriptions but not for much else. These used to be considered natural customers for the most maintenance free and easy to use computers. These people are bewildered by a store with no obvious person or place to check out. While Apple doesn't need to turn the ship around to cater to this demographic, they could do better at meeting their expectations.
Every company has disgruntled employees. But not every company is Apple where employees can snitch to Mark Gurman and get a write up in Bloomberg. The biggest complaint about Apple stores seems to be that they’re too crowded. But if Jason Snell is right the new person heading retail is tasked with pushing sales. That might have been one reason Angela left.
I am not sure how you determine "the biggest complaint," but judging by comments and my own personal experience, the stores being too crowded is not it at all. How about "axing the genius bars" resulting in "shoppers started having trouble getting the right person's attention in speedy fashion?" That is the DMV effect. Instead of going to the genius bar where you would be helped immediately or queued (perhaps with your place in the queue on a display), you find someone in an Apple shirt. They direct you to some table towards the rear of the store where you are directed to sit and wait. After waiting a bit, another Apple shirt comes to check you in. A tech in an Apple shirt goes around looking for the person they're supposed to serve - they've never seen you before so they're wandering around like someone looking for a blind date in a crowded restaurant. All the while you're sitting there wondering who will help you and when. Perhaps it's just older folks, but not everyone is comfortable buying things from the app and just walking out of the store like a shoplifter. It's nice to have that option, but a clear place to pay and person to accept payments wasn't such as bad thing.
In fact, my local DMV does it a little better than the Apple Store. When you go into the DMV, you go immediately to a sort of information desk where they determine the service you require, which documents you need to have with you to get that service, and which line you need to get in. You get a number, and you are served when your number comes up. The lines are always long and nobody likes to go to the DMV, but this makes the best of a difficult situation. At least you know it's fair and where you are in line. Last time I knew it would be long enough that I ran a few quick errands.
I didn't blame AA too much as she came from a different sort of background. I characterized Burberry as a retailer of expensive sweaters in a comment to a previous article on this subject and somebody took exception to that. Ok, they're an expensive retailer of all kinds of garments, makeup, and other stuff. My point having been and being that you don't have people coming in for on-the-spot repairs of a sweater or an overnight bag so the after sales service requirements are a bit different. Cook is not Jobs and doesn't always seem to know how to pick people or what to do with them. The bozo explosion is in the design office now. Ives thinks he is some kind of Da Vinci but he's still running on Jobs' fumes. It's past time for Apple to do something interesting and take some design risks. Perhaps AA could have shaken up that part of the company.
I’ve never had a problem getting a device serviced at an Apple store, I had an iPhone replaced because of a broken sleep-wake button, and iPad with display issues replaced, an Apple Watch with an exploding battery and most recently an iPhone with a cracked display. Maybe once or twice I had to wait a while to be seen but other than that I’ve had no issues. Same with all the times I’ve purchased new devices at an Apple store. They check you in, sir you somewhere and an employee come finds you, I didn’t use Apple stores in the early days, did they have cash registers and checkout lines?
I've never really cared for the Apple Store. It was (and probably still is) great if you're a less experienced user who needs some hand-holding, but not so great if you're experienced and just want to get your problem solved. Getting rid of the Genius Bar was an idiotic move. Same with the stupid "no cash register" thing. Not every employee can check you out, so you find yourself wandering around until you find an available person who can (which can take a long time). If you're just looking to buy something and know what you want, the Apple Store is the worst place to go.
Without the Genius Bar, you know longer know where to go for service either. Service and sales people wear the same shirts, so you have no idea who is who. If the check-in person isn't on their game, the whole experience degenerates rapidly. I recently visited an Apple Store with my dad because his iPhone had died. Despite the store not being very busy, we waited for over an hour after our appointment time. The place was buzzing with staff, but they always seemed to buzz right by the people growing old at the tables waiting for help. The whole Apple Store experience feels utterly confusing and miserable now.
I completely forgot about the stupidity of the no cash register move. It turns a simple purchase into a huge hassle.
With ApplePay on Apple Watch: DIng! "Have a nice Day!", "Thank you! You too!"
Some of the people going to an actual physical store would not be comfortable using Apple Pay on a watch. That's why they went out to a store in the first place rather than just order the item online. You all probably personally know some people (perhaps with AOL email addresses) that manage to use computers for email and to renew their prescriptions but not for much else. These used to be considered natural customers for the most maintenance free and easy to use computers. These people are bewildered by a store with no obvious person or place to check out. While Apple doesn't need to turn the ship around to cater to this demographic, they could do better at meeting their expectations.
I’d be curious to know what Apple’s store demographic is. My mother is 76 and owns an iPhone and iPad. She can use them well enough but is not a technology person at all. She would never set foot in an Apple store on her own.
Last year, the Smart Keyboard of my iPad Pro 10.5" stopped working, likely due to a broken wire in the hinge. It was under warranty. I made the mistake of opting for an in-store replacement.
After the 45-minute drive to the nearest store, it was the game of "find the greeter," akin to Where's Waldo?, the one person who does checkins who is in a random location at the front of the store... wearing the same uniform as every other employee (not to mention ten percent of the patrons—a blue T-shirt). Check in, get told to sit under a random poster on the wall among a throng of other people and wait. Eventually another employee comes to "check me in," and then after another wait a third employee comes to diagnose the problem. (So much for efficiency.)
Half an hour of waiting around... to be told I'll have to come back a week later to get the replacement part as they're out of repair stock.
Could they ship it to me? Nope, because I came into the store, I'll have to come back to pick it up.
But wait... there's one sitting right there, on the shelf. Surely they can give me that one?
Nope. It's "retail stock," not "repair stock." So I have to make a second two-hour round trip to the store to pick up a lightweight part, because the one they have is in the wrong box with the wrong barcode on it.
That was when I realized that the Apple I loved, and recommended to others, was dead. And that Apple Support is now no better than any other manufacturer.
I hope that they go back to what Apple Stores used to be, with a customer-support focus. I'd love to see them go back to having easily identifiable support and checkout areas. The stores are form over function now, much like MacBooks.
I’ve never had a problem getting a device serviced at an Apple store, I had an iPhone replaced because of a broken sleep-wake button, and iPad with display issues replaced, an Apple Watch with an exploding battery and most recently an iPhone with a cracked display. Maybe once or twice I had to wait a while to be seen but other than that I’ve had no issues. Same with all the times I’ve purchased new devices at an Apple store. They check you in, sir you somewhere and an employee come finds you, I didn’t use Apple stores in the early days, did they have cash registers and checkout lines?
Don’t think they ever had cash registers but rather the cashier counter. Initially, I recall that they had Windows CE based handhelds (ouch) that were replaced with iPhone based things. For the customer who is not on the cutting edge (in my view), equipment doesn’t matter so much as there being a place and maybe a person to handle the checkout process. For this type of customer, perhaps even a grocery style self check out would do better than the current arrangement.
By the way, I am not suggesting that more modern payment arrangements and the older ones can’t coexist. That’s how it was for a few years at least.
Last year, the Smart Keyboard of my iPad Pro 10.5" stopped working, likely due to a broken wire in the hinge. It was under warranty. I made the mistake of opting for an in-store replacement.
After the 45-minute drive to the nearest store, it was the game of "find the greeter," akin to Where's Waldo?, the one person who does checkins who is in a random location at the front of the store... wearing the same uniform as every other employee (not to mention ten percent of the patrons—a blue T-shirt). Check in, get told to sit under a random poster on the wall among a throng of other people and wait. Eventually another employee comes to "check me in," and then after another wait a third employee comes to diagnose the problem. (So much for efficiency.)
Half an hour of waiting around... to be told I'll have to come back a week later to get the replacement part as they're out of repair stock.
Could they ship it to me? Nope, because I came into the store, I'll have to come back to pick it up.
But wait... there's one sitting right there, on the shelf. Surely they can give me that one?
Nope. It's "retail stock," not "repair stock." So I have to make a second two-hour round trip to the store to pick up a lightweight part, because the one they have is in the wrong box with the wrong barcode on it.
That was when I realized that the Apple I loved, and recommended to others, was dead. And that Apple Support is now no better than any other manufacturer.
I hope that they go back to what Apple Stores used to be, with a customer-support focus. I'd love to see them go back to having easily identifiable support and checkout areas. The stores are form over function now, much like MacBooks.
In your particular instance, I’d write directly to Tim Cook AND the new woman in charge of retail. That is a level of unacceptable service that is just astonishing.
I've never really cared for the Apple Store. It was (and probably still is) great if you're a less experienced user who needs some hand-holding, but not so great if you're experienced and just want to get your problem solved. Getting rid of the Genius Bar was an idiotic move. Same with the stupid "no cash register" thing. Not every employee can check you out, so you find yourself wandering around until you find an available person who can (which can take a long time). If you're just looking to buy something and know what you want, the Apple Store is the worst place to go.
Without the Genius Bar, you know longer know where to go for service either. Service and sales people wear the same shirts, so you have no idea who is who. If the check-in person isn't on their game, the whole experience degenerates rapidly. I recently visited an Apple Store with my dad because his iPhone had died. Despite the store not being very busy, we waited for over an hour after our appointment time. The place was buzzing with staff, but they always seemed to buzz right by the people growing old at the tables waiting for help. The whole Apple Store experience feels utterly confusing and miserable now.
I completely forgot about the stupidity of the no cash register move. It turns a simple purchase into a huge hassle.
With ApplePay on Apple Watch: DIng! "Have a nice Day!", "Thank you! You too!"
Some of the people going to an actual physical store would not be comfortable using Apple Pay on a watch. That's why they went out to a store in the first place rather than just order the item online. You all probably personally know some people (perhaps with AOL email addresses) that manage to use computers for email and to renew their prescriptions but not for much else. These used to be considered natural customers for the most maintenance free and easy to use computers. These people are bewildered by a store with no obvious person or place to check out. While Apple doesn't need to turn the ship around to cater to this demographic, they could do better at meeting their expectations.
A former Apple retail exec tonight: “It was a wholesale leadership
takeover by fashion industry insiders and agency people who had no idea
what they were doing with Apple. Most of the folks who knew better are
long since gone. O'Brien has her work cut out for her.”
A former Apple retail exec tonight: “It was a wholesale leadership
takeover by fashion industry insiders and agency people who had no idea
what they were doing with Apple. Most of the folks who knew better are
long since gone. O'Brien has her work cut out for her.”
Comments
Hopefully, Apple can bring them back up to the level you remember. We will all be winners!
The other way to reduce service-related foot traffic was to discourage people from bringing their broken devices in to begin with by emphasizing online support for anything that was not explicitly a hardware failure. But if they had to bring their device in, try to reduce that visit time to as little as possible by discouraging on-site repairs which of course reduced the number of people just hanging around the store waiting for their device to be fixed. If the problem couldn’t be quickly fixed, it would go to a service center and they would let you know when you can pick it up.
The other way to reduce foot traffic is to of course discourage in-store sales at all. It seems counter-intuitive, but if they wanted to turn the store into a pleasant shopping experience and a place where you learn something new, there had to be less people in the stores. So emphasize online sales, and turn the store into a place where you can try out new hardware before making a decision, and learn something new with their classes and such.
These were all logical business decisions, but the problem is that all of these steps designed to discourage walk-in support traffic failed, so we ended up with the worst of both worlds: An Apple Store that was actively trying to discourage you from walking in to get support, but you were doing so anyway out of necessity. No wonder people are dissatisfied with the result.
In fact, my local DMV does it a little better than the Apple Store. When you go into the DMV, you go immediately to a sort of information desk where they determine the service you require, which documents you need to have with you to get that service, and which line you need to get in. You get a number, and you are served when your number comes up. The lines are always long and nobody likes to go to the DMV, but this makes the best of a difficult situation. At least you know it's fair and where you are in line. Last time I knew it would be long enough that I ran a few quick errands.
I didn't blame AA too much as she came from a different sort of background. I characterized Burberry as a retailer of expensive sweaters in a comment to a previous article on this subject and somebody took exception to that. Ok, they're an expensive retailer of all kinds of garments, makeup, and other stuff. My point having been and being that you don't have people coming in for on-the-spot repairs of a sweater or an overnight bag so the after sales service requirements are a bit different. Cook is not Jobs and doesn't always seem to know how to pick people or what to do with them. The bozo explosion is in the design office now. Ives thinks he is some kind of Da Vinci but he's still running on Jobs' fumes. It's past time for Apple to do something interesting and take some design risks. Perhaps AA could have shaken up that part of the company.
After the 45-minute drive to the nearest store, it was the game of "find the greeter," akin to Where's Waldo?, the one person who does checkins who is in a random location at the front of the store... wearing the same uniform as every other employee (not to mention ten percent of the patrons—a blue T-shirt). Check in, get told to sit under a random poster on the wall among a throng of other people and wait. Eventually another employee comes to "check me in," and then after another wait a third employee comes to diagnose the problem. (So much for efficiency.)
Half an hour of waiting around... to be told I'll have to come back a week later to get the replacement part as they're out of repair stock.
Could they ship it to me? Nope, because I came into the store, I'll have to come back to pick it up.
But wait... there's one sitting right there, on the shelf. Surely they can give me that one?
Nope. It's "retail stock," not "repair stock." So I have to make a second two-hour round trip to the store to pick up a lightweight part, because the one they have is in the wrong box with the wrong barcode on it.
That was when I realized that the Apple I loved, and recommended to others, was dead. And that Apple Support is now no better than any other manufacturer.
I hope that they go back to what Apple Stores used to be, with a customer-support focus. I'd love to see them go back to having easily identifiable support and checkout areas. The stores are form over function now, much like MacBooks.
By the way, I am not suggesting that more modern payment arrangements and the older ones can’t coexist. That’s how it was for a few years at least.
I don't need to be walking around aimlessly waiting for a multi-use person to finish with another customer and hope that they find me next.