skeptomai

Bad Service at the Apple Store

I admire Apple in many ways and enjoy their products. I looked at having an Apple Store in town as an opportunity to get my hands on new products (fetish technology) and generally soak in the Apple experience. Imagine my displeasure now. The customer service is abysmal. The staff isn't outwardly rude, but they are not knowledgable about their own special deals, or financing and show little skill or creativity at resolving difficult customer situations. Here's but one example: On July 12, I bought my wife a new iBook. At the time, unbeknownst to me, Apple was running a rebate deal in conjunction with HP. Buy a computer, get 100$ off a printer at the same time. No one told me about the program when I bought the computer, but I noticed the advertisements nearly a month later when I returned to the store. I found a sales person and said "I bought an iBook here recently, and since no one told me about this program, can I take advantage of it now?" The salesperson hemmed & hawwed, clearly not knowing what to do. She asked another salesperson "hey, what were the dates on this? Can we do a return-resale?" Salesguy #2 went in the back to check, came out and said "No" to Salesgal #1. She turned and said no to me. I replied "So, you can tell me no. Can you tell me why?" She just snickered nervously. The salesgal didn't know the dates that were clearly posted at the front of the store and wasn't at all conciliatory in telling me no. Customer satisfaction didn't seem to be a priority. This is after I purchased a new machine and the exhorbitantly expensive AppleCare plan on top.

This is only my most recent experience. My wife had a similar experience a couple weeks ago when attempting to purchase a protective carrying case for her new iBook. She couldn't seem to get anyone to pay attention to her, despite the store not being overly crowded and several salespeople not directly occupied. My friend P. recently inquired about financing (after I told him about my Apple credit line). More specifically, he wanted to know about zero-percent financing options. One of the salesfolk told him he'd have to purchase $3000 worth of stuff to get the zero-percent. P. said "ok, on the financing terms here on the website, show me the $3000 dollar thing..." The salesguy couldn't find it. Hmm... not sure what to believe there.