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The Apple Store and Genius Bar are incredibly disorganized.

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I made my first trek to an Apple Store today and I have to say I find myself in general agreement with Eug on the disorganization of the Genius Bar.

After arriving and checking in 10 minutes early for a scheduled appointment with an iPhone Genius, I then found myself milling around for a good 30 minutes. After that point I asked an employee how much longer the queue was backed up (the store had only a few more customers than employees, so 20 minutes after a scheduled appointment seemed a bit extreme at this point), which after a quick check of her check-in iPad required her to go confer with a couple more employees. Eventually I got wonderful "oh crap" faces out of the 3 employees, as they apparently realized that they had forgotten about me and or lost my reservation after check-in.

To Apple's credit they had someone over to handle my device as soon as they realized what had happened (though making no effort to really explain themselves), so after that point I received prompt service. But the fact that I was essentially forgotten does not reflect well on their organization.
 
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ViRGE said:
I made my first trek to an Apple Store today and I have to say I find myself in general agreement with Eug on the disorganization of the Genius Bar.

After arriving and checking in 10 minutes early for a scheduled appointment with an iPhone Genius, I then found myself milling around for a good 30 minutes. After that point I asked an employee how much longer the queue was backed up (the store had only a few more customers than employees, so 20 minutes after a scheduled appointment seemed a bit extreme at this point), which after a quick check of her check-in iPad required her to go confer with a couple more employees. Eventually I got wonderful "oh crap" faces out of the 3 employees, as they apparently realized that they had forgotten about me and or lost my reservation after check-in.

To Apple's credit they had someone over to handle my device as soon as they realized what had happened (though making no effort to really explain themselves), so after that point I received prompt service. But the fact that I was essentially forgotten does not reflect well on their organization.
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Sh*t happens.
 
this is what happens when there's no boss?

Although they could just call up Ron Johnson and offer him a raise lol

I haven't been to an Apple Store recently but I felt they used to be even busier. I remember times you had to book your Genius Bar appointment well in advance. Now you can actually get walk-in service (if you're patient) even if they're disorganized.
 
Eug said:
If I had known, I would have just made the appointment myself online before I went to the store, and then checked in when I arrived.
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This is the only reasonable way to visit the Apple Store around here if you want to actually do something. Otherwise it's pointless as you'll never get anything done.

Not to dismiss the crappy service that you received (he obviously should have explained to you what's going on instead of just assuming that you're familiar with the process), but I thought you're a seasoned Apple user. How do you not know this?
 
ViRGE said:
I made my first trek to an Apple Store today and I have to say I find myself in general agreement with Eug on the disorganization of the Genius Bar.

After arriving and checking in 10 minutes early for a scheduled appointment with an iPhone Genius, I then found myself milling around for a good 30 minutes. After that point I asked an employee how much longer the queue was backed up (the store had only a few more customers than employees, so 20 minutes after a scheduled appointment seemed a bit extreme at this point), which after a quick check of her check-in iPad required her to go confer with a couple more employees. Eventually I got wonderful "oh crap" faces out of the 3 employees, as they apparently realized that they had forgotten about me and or lost my reservation after check-in.

To Apple's credit they had someone over to handle my device as soon as they realized what had happened (though making no effort to really explain themselves), so after that point I received prompt service. But the fact that I was essentially forgotten does not reflect well on their organization.
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Sounds very similar to my experience.

BTW, after the letter I got a response from someone in Apple management, wanting to talk. Hopefully we'll talk next week.

cronos said:
This is the only reasonable way to visit the Apple Store around here if you want to actually do something. Otherwise it's pointless as you'll never get anything done.

Not to dismiss the crappy service that you received (he obviously should have explained to you what's going on instead of just assuming that you're familiar with the process), but I thought you're a seasoned Apple user. How do you not know this?
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Well, I figured I'd just show up, pick up two chargers, hand them my old ones showing them my iPhone and iPad, and then pay and leave. I didn't think it would need a "Genius" to do that. It's not as if they're fixing anything, and it's not a warranty replacement either. What they did do though was verify the serial numbers, as the program is one charger for each iDevice.
 
Spoke with Apple today. I appreciated the followup, and didn't ask for anything except that they try to do something with the organization and communication in the stores to try to eliminate these types of things.

They were honest and interestingly said it isn't the first time this has happened, which I guess is not surprising considering we see ViRGE's similar experience here too.

As for removing the screen with the list of names and the order of appointments, they said that this was a privacy issue, as I suspected, so I suggested perhaps they can think of some other similar or analogous solution that might better guide the customers.

We'll see how things go in the future. Hopefully they'll get everything in order quickly, esp. since the new iPhones are imminent.
 
ViRGE said:
Did Apple tell you that? Or was this announced somewhere?
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It was mentioned in the event today.

http://live.theverge.com/apple-iphone-5s-liveblog/

The Stanford, CA store is tiny, but it has served five million customers — 2,000 per day recently.
This weekend it's been replaced with a massive glass-enclosed pavilion. There's glass on three sides and a cantilevered roof.
Apple has split it into two rooms: one for service, one for retail.

(It wasn't reported in the AnandTech live blog.)
 
I'm not surprised. I lost all faith in Apple employees when I brought my iphone 5 in with a screen defect and the lady attempted to tell me to update iOS as it appears, to her knowledge, that it may be a software defect...

They replaced it. Just wasn't happy with the idiocy i had to listen to.
 
zaydq said:
I'm not surprised. I lost all faith in Apple employees when I brought my iphone 5 in with a screen defect and the lady attempted to tell me to update iOS as it appears, to her knowledge, that it may be a software defect...

They replaced it. Just wasn't happy with the idiocy i had to listen to.
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This doesn't give me much hope, I setup an appointment to troubleshot the screen on the replacement 4s that I received last Saturday. I'm looking forward to seeing what B/S they make up this time.
 
I have dust under my iphone 5 camera lens. I plan to go at some point but I would LOVE to hear them say its SW! 🙂
 
ipown1337 said:
This doesn't give me much hope, I setup an appointment to troubleshot the screen on the replacement 4s that I received last Saturday. I'm looking forward to seeing what B/S they make up this time.
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Lol at people throwing a fit when getting a new phone replacement. Good luck trying to get that service with anything else.

Oyeve said:
I have dust under my iphone 5 camera lens. I plan to go at some point but I would LOVE to hear them say its SW! 🙂
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This happened to me, they gave me a new phone on the spot.
 
It doesn't look like it's a new phone to me, it's a refurb and a bad one at best. Where i work i do great work, I simply expect others to do great work also. I paid for a warranty to have my issues resolved without too much hassle, i would much rather that the phone works correctly so that i do not have to go through the hassle of "getting a replacement" especially when it becomes replacements of replacemnts.
 
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