The Apple Store: Bad Customer Service at Your Local Mall
I have always taken pride in being a member of the 3.5-5% minority group known as Mac users. I found out this weekend one of the reasons we stay in the minority. I came to this realization this afternoon while I was at the mall with my wife and daughter. There we were, strolling past Victoria’s Secret, Crate and Barrel, and Ann Taylor: all the usual stores you will find in any mall across the United States-when I saw a new Apple Store. The black facade, the white glow of the Apple logo--my heart began to race and my palms began to sweat. My first reaction was of excitement. I have frequented 2 other stores within driving distance, but this location is by far the closest to where I live. My walk suddenly became brisk in pace and I just couldn’t wait to see everything inside. This excitement quickly turned to outrage. Mind you this was not a verbal tirade. I was not about to make a scene in front of my daughter. Rather this was an internal rage that I have kept inside of my brain for 6 hours now and thus, I am spilling out my frustration onto my iMac. Here’s what happened.
Absolutely nothing.
Not one person. Not one so called “Mac Genius” who today were all wearing bright orange Apple Camp t-shirts, came up to me. Not one person greeted me with a hello. Not one person asked if I needed any assistance. Not one person explained to me what Apple Camp was even though as a prospective switcher nervous about the transition, I might find it useful. “This is a problem”, I thought. “Maybe they think I’m just browsing”, I thought. So I started to fiddle with things. I picked up the 30GB iPod. I ran my hand down the back of the Harman Kardon subwoofer. I picked up the ibook and flipped it over.
Still...no one.
“Maybe they are busy,” I concluded as I glanced back to the bar area and saw 4 employees laughing and talking in a group. I left in disgust.
This is a big problem that Apple has on their hands. Suppose I was a timid PC user, riding the fence on switching and I came into this store looking for a friendly hand in making the switch? I would have turned right around and walked back out the door. The following is taken from Apple’s website:
“At the Apple Store you can experience the complete line of Macintosh computers and an amazing array of digital cameras, camcorders, the entire iPod family and more. The Apple Store is a place to ask questions and get answers. And it’s the best place to learn about the Mac.”
Ok, the store had the products nicely displayed but it was not the, “best place to learn about the Mac”. I am not asking for a dedicated greeter like my local Walmart. Nor am I asking for someone to hound me, a la Circuit City. Rather the Apple Store needs to focus on the non-Apple users before they cater to the existing Apple user base. We already know what we want, what is available, and what it costs. We are there to ogle and fondle. We are the 5%. Apple already has our support, our dedication, and our money. But if Apple wants to have any chance in increasing market share via the Apple Store, they are going to have to train their employees to be friendlier. Or at the very least to talk to their customers.
It’s customer service 101. What have your experiences been like at the Apple Store?
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Personally, I’m waiting for them to open an Apple store in San Francisco. And then I’m going to apply, and I refuse to be one of the crappy retail employees who leaves you to your own devices. Not that I’d hound a customer. That’s probably worse. But I wouldn’t allow someone to walk in and become disinterested due to seemingly shy employees.
Not that I’d get the job… Even WITH years upon years of Apple/Mac experience, enough UNIX experience, and a hideously debilitating ferver for OS X… And retail experience. (And customer service experience...)
s1) the company (Apple) is not the same as their employees. i’m sure every manager dreams of that synergy, but not everyone has the time or inclination to live and breathe the words of Steve Christ, no, not even the human beings that get free Apple Camp t-shirts. if i go work in a supermarket i am not expected to come to work and recite the corporate mantra. i am an individual, a human being, and i will not tolerate some braindead customer / self-publishing Internet author to assume that just because i’m wearing my corporate uniform (my orange Apple Camp t-shirt), i am the signpost upon which the company should be judged. that is an illusion, that’s what your new boss tells you on the first day of work but anybody who buys that is totally lost. it’s also insulting to the humanity of the people working there that you would think that. i’m sure they have lives outside of the well-lit glass-enclosed retail space. at the end of the day they got a job there to make money, not spread the Gospel of Steve.
2) if someone fails to buy a computer based on their experiences in a retail store, then it’s their loss… you don’t have to follow people across the mall saying, “buy our computers, they’re the greatest thing since individually-wrapped cheese!” most people would think someone was an idiot if they didn’t buy a certain brand of shoes based on a rude or unavailable salesperson… they’d also be idiots if they didn’t get the computer they wanted because a bunch of teens at the local Apple Store had better things to do. if someone wants a Mac bad enough, they’ll get it. if not, let ‘em use their little Gateway until the cows come home. moo.
3) not everyone wants to be greeted in a retail environment. i prefer to be left alone whenever possible. i don’t even want them to say hello. every one of my friends agrees. if i have a question, i will ask, though the actual knowledge of the Apple Store employees is for another article… “i don’t know exactly how fast the SuperDrive is, but i can tell you that it is Super” said a local Apple droid at the Chestnut Hills store in MA. if you’re gonna give me answers like that, just don’t answer at all. just leave me alone with all the shiny toys that i can’t afford. i stay in the store longer when salespeople leave me alone too, imagine that.
4) if the author has a problem with this, he should go volunteer at this newfound retail location - yes, he should go work for free just to give Apple a good name, if he thinks that’s really the issue. the teens and twentysomethings who work at the stores are probably not in on the Holy Quest To Increase Minority Market Share. no, they could be working at Foot Locker and care about their job just as much, ha ha. it’d be great if Apple could find 500 willing employees in each town that reallyreallytruly care about the “Apple Experience,” but sometimes you just have to keep someone there to operate the register. so if the author really cares that much about putting gas in Steve’s Gulfstream IV he should go down there and greet people himself and share his infinite knowledge of Apple’s products with the world… if you really have that “sense of duty” (as one person here has mentioned). Sense of duty, the man said! Apple is the first corporation that people will pay to work for! some of you people swallow the image whole, just like good little consumers. Apple could be releasing a supercool OS based on the Windows 1.01 kernel and you’d lap it up. just think about that the next time you go to one of these bright retail locations and notice that they don’t even have to put the words “The Apple Store” - no, just a big logo. “I Pledge Allegiance… To The Brand...”
5) just because Apple talked you into staying the night doesn’t mean they have to respect you in the morning! Greg, next time you go in the store i want you to put a big flashing sign over your head that says, “HI YOU SILLY APPLE STORE EMPLOYEE, I AM GREGORY NG, SELF-PUBLISHING APPLE EVANGELIST - COME AND SERVE ME NOW, OR AT LEAST PRETEND TO, SINCE I ACTUALLY KNOW EVERYTHING ABOUT THE COMPUTERS YOU’RE SELLING.” for the love of god, Apple sells computers. they do not care about human beings any more than a competing corporation. in fact they surprise me with their hostility towards their own third party resellers and software developers. if they had 90% of the market they would treat all of you even worse than Microsoft treats their customers. just because you bought an expensive laptop or MP3 player from them does not mean that they owe you respect, a back rub, a free lunch, return shipping, a “pain and suffering” discount, a Burton snowboarding jacket… they don’t have to listen to you complain about a dead pixel on your iMac… they don’t have to take your suggestions for a videoPod with 100 jillabytes of storage. what they do owe you is a one year warranty and 90 days of support. they’re a company, after all, engaged in the exchange of money for goods and services. it’s irrelevant that their goods and services are some of the best.
For the record. I gave a copy of this article to the Managers of the Santa Clara store when I went for my interview to work there as a part time sales person. They weren’t too happy to see it. I didn’t get the job.
Some interesting posts. I would like to say a few things. First, I have run all-macintosh computer stores so I think I know a thing or two about what it takes to run a mac computer store and make it successful. I was the vp of sales and president of ComputerWare from 1991 to 2001 we had 10 stores in the bay area and our sales were over 60 million when we ceased operation (which is another story) while we were far from perfect I think at the very least we tried, given the budget (far less than the money that Apple has) we were operating with, to provide our customers with the best service possible. The thing that makes me crazy with the Apple stores in that they could be “great” they have resources that any normal mac retailer does not have access to. Such as a higher staffing levels (I can only dream of having the money to hire as many people as Apple has working in a store at ComputerWare we only had the money to have between 5 and 7 people working in our stores at Apple they have between 15 and 30), the money for fixtures and displays that Apple has is far more most computer dealers, the access to the “hot” new computers first and priority getting the new stuff (if it is in tight supply) are advantages that most dealers can only dream about. The money that they can spend on things like rent and marketing are far more than your typical mac dealer. It’s too bad that Apple is wasting the opportunity hopefully they will improve the shopping experience in the stores over time as they learn that running a computer store takes a bit more work then running your typical Target store (which is where many of the people who are running the Apple stores come from).
However, I remain bullish regarding the Apple market and am putting my money where my mouth is. I will be opening a brand new all-macintosh store in San Rafael. Hopefully I can earn my customers trust and loyality by treating them the way they deserve to be treated. Now I don’t have deep pockets and unlimited funding, but I think that mac customers still value good service (with fair return and price protection policies), fair pricing, a comfortable atmosphere to shop and where customers will always have our appreciation because we know they have other places to shop and other ways to spend their valuable time and money. Where they can come in and have a cup of coffee, read through our library of mac books, mac magazines, hop on the internet or just relax and hang out. Any way look for the store to open in about two weeks from the folks that brought you MacOrchard (in Berkeley in 1987), MacGarden (in San Rafael in 1988) and ComputerWare (in Palo Alto in 1985). We know what it takes to be an all-mac dealer.
At the Apple store in Kenwood Towne Centre (our closest Apple store), I havn’t had any problems. When I went in the store the Apple people seemed polite enough and helped me and answered all of my questions.
CompUSA was a little weird though. The only Apple guy there had a [sarcasm]manly[/sarcasm] looking ponytail, and talked a little funny…
I’ve had both very good and very bad experiences at the San Francisco Genuis Bar. I’ve waited over 45 minutes past my pre-scheduled time, in the theater about 20 feet away with my ears and eyes wide open to my place in the queue, only to be given literally less than 5 seconds to jump when my name was called, before they went onto the next in queue. When I pointed it out, there was little if any concern and I had to wait further, feeling obligated to stare at staff and “defend” my place, lest I get passed over again. For such a queue system as they have, this kind of thing happening is very off-putting, and the apathy worse. That said, I think I had a bad seed--he seemed burnt out. The Apple store and it’s service is such a class act, that this lack of service seemed astoundingly out of place. If I were in Abercrombe and Fitch with a 17 year old staffperson, I may not care.
Greg, is the Apple Store you wrote about the one in the Palisades Center Mall in W. Nyack, NY? I’ve been to that one many times since it is the closest one to where I live. I’ve noticed that the employees in that store often times seem arrogant or discriminatory. It’s as if that just because they work at an “Apple” store they are so much smarter and better than the rest of the world and they will size you up when you walk into the store.
On one occasion, I bought the Altec Lansing InMotion speaker system for my iPod and at the checkout I asked the cashier if he can make sure that it hasen’t been bought and returned in the past(because I prefer it to be brand new and never used). He acted like I just asked a ridiculous question and put on a sarcastic attitude. I had to explain to him what I meant and without checking he just said “yea it’s new”. At that point I felt like cursing him off but it would’ve obviously caused a scene and I refrained. But his attitude got me really pissed off and even though I gave them business and bought something I wanted, I was definately not a happy customer at that moment.
I also shop at the Woodcliff Lake, NJ Apple Store. Over there the reps seem more mature and courteous and just do a better job. But usually if I’m there to just browse around I feel like I’m being spied on as if they think I’m there to steal something.
In the Palisades Center Mall Apple Store, the reps are younger looking and they don’t treat you with good customer service. Once you walk in you’re pretty much on your own whether you like it or not.
With that said, I never expect much when I walk into an Apple Store. I go there just to look. When I want to buy something I do it online. Plus I get a discount : ]
I have to say that my service at the Apple Store in Mission Viejo has been decent.
I’ve been waited on quickly, even when it was busy, and I have had my questions answered.
My complaint? Every piece of advice I have gotten has been wrong. Let me give the most recent set of examples:
1) I bought a fireware cable in order to copy from my old mac to my new one. I told them I had upgraded my boot disk to a new SATA disk on a third party controller. I asked if that would work ok. The guy said “Let me ask a genius, one minute”. He came back, and said “No problem”.
Of course, once I got it home, it didn’t work. It will only copy from the ATA disk. The SATA was not visible. There may be a workaround, but the mac “genius” didn’t know it when I went in.
2) My .mac account got spam (sorry, targeted advertising) for the .mac “family pack”. I thought that was a great idea, so I went and asked about it when I was buying a new G4 12 inch. They said “Yes, you just put in this number when your old account expires”. Well, it doesn’t work like that. When it didn’t, I called Apple, who told me you couldn’t upgrade an existing account.
3) On said g4 12inch laptop, I wanted to get 1 GB of RAM installed. I was told installation was free, the RAM was $500, and the install would take over a week. I took it to CompUSA (an authorized repair shop) who did it in 10 minutes for $30.
4) My wife broke the shift key on her new 12inch G4 (from above). It was not apparent if it could be fixed, so we called the Apple store. They talked for a minute, then put us on hold for 20 minutes, then directed us to call Apple Support. We did, and they informed us that even though the keyboard is covered, it would not be covered since it was “self-inflicted”. Well, fair enough. We were informed that it would void the warranty, and that we had to send it in for ~$665 in repairs.
http://www.powerbookmedic.com carries it for $120. http://www.powerbookmedic.com/Powerbook-G4-Aluminum-Keyboard---BRAND-NEW-p-16506.html
We ended up just using tweezers to fix it. It took less than 5 minutes.
Basically, I have found the Apple store to be just plain pointless. I can’t get advice, I can’t get decent tech support, and the people are totally useless.
I’m actually really down on Apple in general right now, since I have spent almost $4,000 on Apple hardware in the last 2 months at the same Apple Store (plus the Tiger family pack, WoW, Garage band packs, Soundtrack, a keyboard, etc), and I could have gotten better support from Radioshack.
I’m now a switcher. I need a new machine for my desktop, and l’m not buying a mac. I’m buying a PC.
-WS
WntSolstice, so a bad RETAIL experience is driving you back to Microsoft, well good luck in the future with your virus infected Winbox, and dealing with spyware, trojans, worms, etc.
A store, any store is only as good as its manager, obviously some Apple Stores need a shake-up.
Our policy is to greet customers within 30 seconds to ackowledge the fact they have entered the store, if they want help at that point we give it, if not we let them browse in peace, but keep an eye out to assist if necessary.
One of our local Apple Resellers is run by a sociopath, with arrogant snippy cashiers, pushy 100% commission salesmen, and the head tech is a total arsehole. At one time the were the only game in town for Apple, and they still have the best selection. So when I go in there I know what to expect, but it certainly won’t stop me from buying Apple products, the alternative is to horrible to contemplate.
I would rather have a lousy retail experience for a few minutes, and years of great computing experiences, than a great retail experience and years of lousy computing.
I just back from my local Apple store in Glendale. My experience there is usually pretty good, although whether or not a salesperson will know the answer to a question seems like luck of the draw.
I had just one question and I flagged down a random salesperson. She couldn’t have been more confused if I had struck her on the head with a baseball bat. And not only did she not know the answer, couldn’t even comprehend what I was asking, but she was SMUG about it, like I was crazy for asking a question she didn’t undestand.
I did, however, see a Nano. Very slick. A lot smaller than I imagined from the photos.
Being once a customer service representative, it’s important to acknowledge the presence of a customer walking in the store. Even a casual nod or a simple ‘hi!’ would suffice. Every walk-in is a potential buyer (possibly a potential switcher?), and a simple greeting could go a long way, for whatever reasons said customer walks in the store. Maybe their sales training put too much emphasis on memorization of new hardware specs and overlooked the customer service greeting portion? Though I’d have to say that in most of the stores I’ve entered, the lack of customer service was because all the sales associates were busy.
Regardless, I still browse to those Apple stores, especially when the girlfriend is shopping in Ann Taylor next door!
I’ve had mixed pleasure’s at Apple stores in my travels.
In Las Vegas I was able to fiddle with all the display items and not one employee ever asked if I wanted to know anything. They were all too busy selling multiples of IPods to folks from Italy.
In Denver, the second I stepped into the store I was met by a friendly, and knowledgeable employee who demo’d the software I was interested in and discussed upcoming equipment.
In Pasadena (CA) I was looking for the new mouse and found no employees that were not behind a cash register. I waited in a long checkout line to ask a mouse question and caused the employee grief as he had to delay a customer with cash-in-hand.
In my small (by comparison)home town there is no “Apple store”, but rather a well run local “Mac Superstore” where ‘everyone knows your name’ and all the employees seem to have the mix of salesman and technoman fairly well laid out.
If I don’t buy it locally, I buy it from the Apple website.
hotep
Who cares, Apple is still better than all the other PC manufacturers. I mean come on, at least you can go to the apple store, demo/purchase anything you see. What! Microsoft is finally attempting to open another retail chain....Always behind the times......
I will be an Apple enthusiast no matter what customer service I get in an Apple store. If I have a problem or question I call 1-800-Apl-Care(I think thats what it is,if not its close) if you have the Apple Care protection plan, great you got about 3 years if not then thats your own fault. Apple has always taken care of my 2.5 year old powerbook and I. Apple Rules...If you are picky buy a PC and get some trojan viruses.
While I am sure Apple appreciates the fanatical devotion, you have to remember a few things:
1) Apple was not the first. Gateway had local stores long before. They failed because they had really crappy customer service, and officially because the “overhead was too high”. Really it was that no one bought stuff there. Apple has done well so far, but there are issues.
2) Apple care was not willing to help with my keyboard issue. Neither in-store, or via phone. They wanted to charge an amazing price just to replace a cheap part.
3) Apple OS is NOT immune to trojans, spyware, or anything else. The OS is a bit better designed, the lack of a desktop user running as root helps, but I assume most of you have “javascript enabled” and “java enabled” checked? I have seen 3 pieces of malicious JS in the wild in the past two months. One of them tried to upload the address book from one of our sales people.
How many of you are running with auto-login? How many of you browse the web with an “admin” account? Do you even realize how vulnerable OSX is to viruses? Automator makes it simple. The fact that Apple is a fringe OS just makes it less useful a target. Ever heard of a virus for BeOS? Same reason.
4) I *am* picky. So I will buy a Personal Computer that suits my needs from a company that gives a darn. Irregardless of which company it is at the time. It used to be Sun. Then IBM. Currently Apple. Next, it might be Alienware or BOXX. Hard to say.
-WS
As usual we are only hearing one side of the story, and how different would the the service department describe this senario compared to your version? I know that in our store we bend over backwards to accommodate customers, but there are individuals who are extremely high maintenance and no matter what you do its never enough, Frankly to be in retail for any length of time results in a feeling of disgust toward some members of the general public.
I’m not accusing you of such behaviour, I after all have never met you, but I do suggest you look inside and ask yourself if you are one.