formergeniusapp

avon b7 said:

formergeniusapp said:

avon b7 said:

clexman said:

AppleInsider said:

"overworked"

I've never really understood that term when it comes to an hourly retail job.

My experience with an iPhone purchase might shed some light on that. 

I was managing the purchase of an iPhone via trade in but with an iTunes backup sitting on a vintage laptop. 

I foresaw problems from the outset and tried every way possible to anticipate and resolve the potential problems I had flagged. 

The staff (online and in retail) simply weren't up to the task. 

The first line was the overly friendly and smiley guy who was clearly after the sale. That was his sole ambition. Problems? He was sure anything that popped up could be dealt with. Of course, by then, he would be out of the picture and any problems would be for someone else. 

For privacy reasons, the old phone would have to be erased in front of me so I reminded him of the backup sitting on that vintage Mac/iTunes combo. He insisted in his overly friendly/smiley and now somewhat condescending way, that I shouldn't worry so I insisted and asked him to check for me. No one available for that he said. 

So the phone was erased and the new one purchased and I was sent over to a table with about eight users in the same situation as me. Setting up and moving data to their new phones. All using different configuration combos and overseen by just one employee who was clearly not keeping up with all the questions being fired at him by confused users. 

As soon as he saw my MBP he joked about it being a relic. I just thought "well, boy have I got some work for you" and proceeded to explain all the problems I could foresee. His eyes seemed to glaze over and it became clear he was out of his depth - and he was taking me with him! 

His first reaction was blind faith - plug in the new phone and follow the instructions. 

Bang! The iPhone wanted the latest version of iTunes. I told him, things are going to get nasty from here. All the while he was being bombarded with questions from people at the table and trying to answer them. Some required him to move away from me. From there it was virtually impossible to get him back. 

Sure enough, the new iTunes requiered a system update but the latest OS wouldn't run on that machine and it was impossible to download a previous version. This is a very STUPID Apple thing. 

I was now officially screwed as my only backup was sitting in iTunes and there was no way fish it out of there simply because Apple had made it 'impossible. 

The smiley/friendly guy was nowhere to be found at this point and when I finally got the attention of the other guy he went pale. 

He knew the' I warned you' line was coming. 

So he had to escalate the problem to someone who knew more than him so off we went, only to find an 'expert' who was in the same situation as him, trying to deal with multiple issues at the same time. 

That expert had to consult with another expert who was also dealing with multiple customers at the same time. 

The result? I would have to book an appointment with a 'Genius' but there was no guarantee a solution could be found and it could take up to a week to get the appointment. 

I'd been in the store for hours by this time and said, screw it. 

I'll do my own thing. 

This is a 120km round trip for me. 

In the end, and with a huge amount of hassle, I got the transfer done but if just one thing is clear, it's that the staff at that store were being worked off their feet and the customer experience was taking a hit as a result. 

Yeh, those were the days! Luckily now everything is done via iCloud and is a lot quicker or can be done at home.

I don’t miss customer sitting with their Mac’s for hours uploading or download backups!! 

Yes. They were trying to get me to sign up to a paid tier from the outset on the claim that everything would be easier. 

I said I wasn't going to do that to upgrade. I reminded the guy that iTunes on Windows was basically good to go almost as far back as Windows 95, something that made my situation even more grating. 

Curiously, we have just accepted a new promotional tariff from our carrier with a device included at a reasonable price but according to them we had to request it at the time of acceptance. 

We chose an iPhone 13. It came 'new' (official green arrow seal on the box, model number starting with M etc).

The transfer was a nightmare experience. It failed wirelessly three times in a row. Appearing to 'hang' with a spinning wheel on the new phone or an error message saying contact had been lost with the other phone and stating to restart the 'iPhone' but failing to make it clear to which one! 

Apple really hasn't thought the failure recovery procedure through enough. 

Terrible experience and communication with the user was a fail and pain point.

My wife now has a paid iCloud plan so we decided to try that. More problems and cryptic messages, only to reach some outright alarming points including that the purchases made by my wife were being merged with those from another AppleID! 

What! 

Then the killer. A message popped up asking for the password of an AppleID (email address presented) and asking for a password which we obviously didn't know because that AppleID had nothing to do with us. 

We were however able to skip that and get the phone up and running. 

Suspecting the phone wasn't new we decided to erase it a return it. 

I told my wife to go into the 'old' phone and disassociate it from her AppleID. A message was returned saying the task couldn't be carried out be the new device was still being updated! 

That's when I pulled the plug and reset the phone to factory settings. It's now back with the carrier and I opened up a chat with Apple to give them all the details. They say they will contact the carrier to investigate further. 

Kudos to Apple here as the chat process was very clean and efficient (it was also 2am local time). Only downer is that although I have a case number, they don't provide a copy of the chat itself.