'Secret' Apple retail policy reportedly rewarded polite customers with free fixes, replace...

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  • Reply 41 of 50
    darkvaderdarkvader Posts: 1,146member
    In the world nice people have a higher opportunity of getting benefits than not nice people.

    Karma bites.

    There is no  policy to help one customer more than another. All are welcome at Apple as long as you respect others. Golden Rule.

    That must be why rich people are all really, really nice.  Oh, wait...
  • Reply 42 of 50
    I know other companies that had similar policies but discontinued them after employees started referring to them as the "hot person" discount
  • Reply 43 of 50
    bxd20bxd20 Posts: 1member
    This may have been true under Jobs, but I’ve gotten ZERO breaks.  That feeling of being valued is gone for me personally. 

     I came into an Apple store last summer. My 15 month old iPhone XR just died one day. It suddenly turned off, and refused all attempts to turn back on, by me or by the Genius. There was absolutely no water damage, no physical damage, no drops.  Genius agreed phone looked brand new and couldn’t explain it.

    Still, despite buying many iPhones for everyone in family, and having ALSO brought in my daughters iPhone for a battery replacement (which I paid full price for), I got zero break on the XR replacement cost. $500 for 128GB version. He even tried to upsell me into an 11 for $600, which just knifed me even harder. iPhones cost way too much money to suffer catastrophic main board problem (that’s what he wrote on the work order) after 15 months with NO help.
    (Yes, I was extremely patient, kind, and professional during the entire exchange.)
    edited March 2021
  • Reply 44 of 50
    "You have to ask me NICELY." - Jack Nicholson, A Few Good Men.

    Troubling if it's a policy. No doubt this is explicitly intended as a "Variable Reward Schedule" to limit complaints and reward some passivity. But reserving the "best" service for those who never express dissatisfaction or get upset - and potentially denying service to those who do - creates a double standard, and exacerbates the experience of customers who have legitimate reasons for BEING upset (at a failed product or service).

    Customer Service should focus on the merits and context of an issue, not the personality, anxiety, emotional limitations, ethnicity, gender, or attire of the customer. 
  • Reply 45 of 50
    iadlibiadlib Posts: 95member
    When I worked for Apple there was no official policy in place for this. Though they did encourage us to surprise and delight (under promise, over deliver). There was no set quota and it was at employee/manager discretion. You issued a CS code and voila the repair was free. 

    Before I worked there, I had multiple instances of being surprised and delighted, which is a large part of why I wanted to get a job there. The irony is that this policy or practice was not in effect for employees at all. 

    Case in point, I had a 17inch PowerBook and the screen was so heavy that the hinge couldn’t keep the display upright (Gravity 1 | Apple 0) if you were at an angle while using the machine. After a year of use, the bezel below the display started to bow outward. 

    I was a “genius” at the time and we weren’t doing certain repairs in house, you had to send them to a depot repair center like everyone else. So off it went. Surprise and not delight, I got a phone call from some doofus higher up in the food chain that accused me of accidentally damaging my computer. 

    I tried politely explaining that I was an employee and knew better than to damage my own computer. Furthermore as a “genius” I explained exactly what was happening and that it was a design or assembly flaw. The person on the phone had clearly never taken a computer apart and couldn’t give a shit about the situation. 

    They then filed a complaint with corporate stating that I lied and was trying to buck the system and get special treatment and treated them rudely. My store manager (hey M) came to talk to me about how this behavior was unacceptable etc etc. I let him talk, then took him to our lead genius (hi K) who corroborated that I was right about the issue and that he should have issued a CS code when he checked in my computer. 

    Soon after that incident we got a new store manager (hi W) who was successfully worse than the first. Apple hired him from Target, made him a store manager of the lowest performing retail store, then transferred him to a store that had such high revenue that it could have been a flagship store. 

    This idiot then got blinded by greed (store managers could earn 125% of their salary as a bonus for the store hitting its metrics, meanwhile we didn’t see a penny) and wound up poisoning the culture of the store, getting paranoid we were trying to get him fired (we were) and then decimated a solid team by going on a firing spree (witch-hunt) until he was demoted and transferred. 

    The person reporting him was one of his lieutenants and not innocent herself in the skullduggery department, but she got promoted to a corporate position meanwhile the rest of those poor schlubs got stuck with another manager who liked to tell us that in the new Apple we were numbers and not names. 

    No loyalty back biting jackholes lol. To this day if I ever have an issue, I wind up reporting it to Tim via email because they have a tendency to treat ex-employees the same way they treat current ones, like crap. Thanks for coming to my TedTalk. 
    muthuk_vanalingamFileMakerFeller
  • Reply 46 of 50
    Anilu_777 said:
    From reading the comments above I think the TikTok user is just saying what seems to be happening. I heard once that Apple reps have a code for dicks (don’t remember it) and a code for nice people (an acronym for Not an Asshole) that they would attach to your Apple ID. Urban legends abound around Apple. I have found personally (so just the anecdote level) that working retail meant I’m always super nice and patient with Apple reps. I’ve only had issues 3 times. I documented the issues with screen shots and screen recordings when I could. I was courteous and never demanding. I always had great service and my devices were replaced even though one (AirPods with crackling) didn’t have Apple Care. Was it a special program? I’ll never know. I just know that you get what you give. 
    That would have been fun. But no, there was no such coding... at least as recent as 2017. A lot of high-risk interactions, such as attempts to service devices with high probability of failure was neutral in notes regardless of customer attitude, because those notes are permanent and available to the customer via email or printed on request, but would sometimes warrant communication with the repair tech to perform a miracle if we knew the stakes were high. I remember a case where a woman wanted to retrieve her voicemails saved as files on a device without a backup of her then-passed daughter on a device we were very uncertain would pass post-repair diagnostics without having to initialise the OS. It was a success. But failure occurs with even the most heart-tugging situations. Notes are what seals the deal and covers our butt.
    edited March 2021
  • Reply 47 of 50
    What is the complete opposite of this policy called.  I ordered a pair of air pros and the charging case arrived dead was informed by apple that they would have to charge me for a replacement and when  I send the broken ones in i will be reimbursed well after receiving the replacement I called Apple because I noticed it came with no shipping box the apple wrapped informed me that they would not replace anything for free  even though the airpods where less than a week old.   Also had a 12plus with dimming display problems a week prior so im sure im in apples notes as some sort of scammer so I get terrible service every time.  Had to file a bbb claim just to get my money back.  The 10yr olds working as slave labor for apple make great hardware but apple needs to work on their customer service
  • Reply 48 of 50
    Back when my willowy, blonde, 16 year old daughter was willowy, blonde, and 16 (she's still willowy and blonde), whenever anyone in our family had a problem with their iPhone, we'd give it to her to take into the store.  I don't remember a single time when that tactic didn't result in a replacement or free repair.
  • Reply 49 of 50
    I can totally confirm that. Had to get a battery replacement for a 2012 rMacbook Pro, but had a built to order Keyboard. They said they could only replace it with the original keyboard and that was for some reason not shipable for 3 months. I staid calm, didn't complain, was sympathetic with them. They said they will give me a replacement Macbook Pro instead. There was a problem though, since I had replaced the hard drive in my old macbook. After a lot of back and forth I got a brand new 2017 15" Macbook Pro with the highest standard config (Radeon 560X) for the price of the battery replacement plus what it cost to upgrade to the larger harddrive. All in all I spent around 550 bucks for a device that cost 3300. Pretty good deal :)
  • Reply 50 of 50
    Rayz2016 said:
    I think this is more to do with a quick check on your purchase history and how honest when asked why there’s a garden rake embedded in your laptop. 


    Hey, my Farmville experience is just more extreme than yours, OK? :P
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