I own a little MacBook and work on two Mac Pro machines, love every second I spend using the Mac Os and am the exact opposite of what one might call a hater. That being said, let’s cut to the chase.
My MacBook is a 3rd-gen, non-uni body model, it has the common fault of strips of plastic breaking off from the keyboard panel. I have no big issue with this, as long as it works, however after finding out that the parts are being replaced by Apple at no cost, I rushed down to my closest Apple store (the one in Oxford circus).
I definitely had the wow factor, after walking into it, my first impression was: a store done right. What one would expect from Apple. I saw lots of people all around and two queues at the end of the store, so I assumed that someone would be able to help.
After around 15 minutes of waiting, the genius sent me upstairs to the genius bar. The queues were to the sales/returns desks. My first thought was: why is this not clearly indicated? I disregarded this as my stupidity and went upstairs to witness a few more queues. I got into one and wasted another 15 minutes waiting for the genius to tell me that I need to book an appointment and should queue in a different line to do so.
This is where I started to feel a bit let down, however the free repair definitely sounded attractive and I was happy to wait a bit more to do so. Besides, I got into a very pleasant discussion with a middle aged lady while waiting for another 15 minutes, so I did not feel the time fly past.
The woman in-front of me came up to the shiny iMac to make a booking. She was first impressed by the big screen, only to be frustrated, after finding out that it has just broken down and the lack of network connection did not let her make an appointment, this fault was only explained to her after about 20 minutes of her smashing the Magic Mouse against the table and shouting insults at the “useless machine” in-front of her.
The genius that came to her rescue promised to resolve her problem and advised everyone in the queue to follow him to a different Mac. Which also had no network. The third one did, however the mouse was either broken or the batteries had died, so we were unable to use it as well.
During this tour of broken down networks and absolute lack of care on the behalf of the geniuses, the lady was trying to explain to one of them that she just wants some help with her new iPod.
None of the geniuses seemed eager to help her with the issue, their job is only to assist us with making reservations to the genius bar. Fair enough, I see how lack of training and low wages could influence them to act the way they did.
So after about 40 minutes of queuing and learning about the unreliable networks provided by AirPort Express, the booking window finally came up and the lady was able to see the available slots. The nearest one was 4 days away. That finally blew her fuse, she smashed the iPod against the floor and stomped on it a few times with her heels, shouting various insults at the store staff and then stormed out of the store.
It is highly disappointing, how a company as profitable as Apple seems to show so little care and regards for their customers, who only want a bit of help trying to figure out a new device that they had just purchased. Furthermore, it is infuriating to see such complete lack of effort in maintaining essential store equipment.
I on the other hand did not have the guts to smash my MacBook, made an appointment and will be coming back to the store in several days.
After witnessing the quality of the hardware, after not having a single major issue with the Mac Os software and using the Apple site as the idol in a lot of my projects I finally felt let down by Apple. I hope this little incident is a one-off and nothing like this will ever happen to any Apple customer.
I look forward to returning to the store in a hope that next time will be different.