
Be nice to shop workers
However difficult it is to keep a straight face when dealing with a shop worker with a job title of "genius", remember bill and ted "be excellent to each other" however pretentious the store you find yourself in.
Apple iSlaves have joined together to publish a scathing indictment of customers who graze at the fruity firm's retail stores. A number of embittered Apple employees have contributed to a Reddit thread called Confessions of an Apple Store Worker, which was started by an anonymous employee called FruitStandSlave. Apple …
Be nice to people, full stop.
That's always a good starting point. It is highly unlikely that the person you are talking to is personally to blame for your problem, and being polite is the best chance you've got of getting things fixed quickly and painlessly. If there's been a big corporate screw-up then chances are the person has been dealing with irate customers all day, so being polite will be a refreshing change for them and you'll get good service.
However, if you start by being polite and the support person is a jerk despite that, I don't mind a bit of escalation but it's important that the other person started it. If we all did that, we'd all get along really well because we'd all be waiting for the other person to start the jerk circle.
Always remember that it's not the shop workers fault if the product you bought is crap - you can either a) get them on side to help or b) vent your frustrations at the crap product at them and try to intimidate. I'd suggest that starting at (b) will exclude (a) from ever being a possibility.
Of course, I also find that being decent to people also leaves me getting screwed over and scumbags with no sense of decency and incapable of feelings of guilt usually get their own way.
So it's your choice, be a decent person who gets screwed over, or be a scumbag who gets their own way - it's a matter of conscientious ie do you have one v does the person you're talking to have one. (honestly, sometimes I wish I didn't)
Wander in, look around for any sign of a queue, line up, or a Take-A-Number system. Nothing.
Stand there looking like an idiot for three minutes. Nothing. Staff all busy doing something.
Wander around randomly unplugging things, hoping to attract attention. Nothing.
Drop trousers around ankles. Suddenly it's all "Can I help you sir?" Reinstall trousers.
Works every time.
(joke alert)
They're weird.
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Confirmation bias anyone?
Even if they are actually Apple staff I'm sure it's possible you are going to get a few bad Apples if you pardon the pun ;-) The Apple staff I have dealt with have been polite / friendly but YMMV and I'm sure if you go in all guns blazing you might get someones back up - we're all human in that respect - probably the same if you charge into a Mercedes garage and start shouting at the staff.
I have nothing constructive to say about this article. It just shows Apple's focus on maintaining a brand relationship over having a working device in the hands of their end user.
And, of course, you (a) believe everything you read and (b) think that this only happens at Apple. I note with interest that the entire content of the ramblings are what this person thinks of their job and their world, not what Apple asks them to do - I have seen people like that in all areas of sales. You don't need to be in tech either to come across them, so it's not what I would call, errm, "news".
Personally, if I had someone like that working for me I would strive to make them feel happier by asking them to take their dissatisfaction elsewhere.
Given how it singles out one brand and the very nature of the article, it almost got me thinking that I now know what Jasper's other job is.
Keep going, Jasper.
Two reasons -
1. It really irritates Steve Davies 3 which can only be good
2. We need you on point to balance out Orlowski's loathing of Google and Gavin Clark's hatred of Microsoft*.
(*To judge from podcasts, this is basically down to an inability to pronounce "Microsoft" or indeed, understand anything about software. I have no idea what Google did to Orlowski).
2. We need you on point to balance out Orlowski's loathing of Google and Gavin Clark's hatred of Microsoft*.
(*To judge from podcasts, this is basically down to an inability to pronounce "Microsoft" or indeed, understand anything about software. I have no idea what Google did to Orlowski).
1 - loathing Google is demonstrating insight into what they are really doing, and not falling for the "don't be evil" meme.
2 - it takes a special kind of person to insult someone for pronunciation. That is so seriously weak, characterless and below par that you've just fallen of the scale, even if you weren't already cheerleading for Google and Microsoft.
Certainly as a teenager working in a supermarket, or later a bar populated by a)stockbrokers and b)pseudo gangsters there was no one I held in great contempt than the customers. Apart from possibly the management, depending on who had screwed up most egregiously that day.
I've since discovered academia to be the way and the light way; neither management nor customers!
Eee lad, you'v hit nail on ead there.
No, no, no.
Eee lad, you've hit t'nail on t'ed theer.
Word of advice for pronunciation, you would not pronounce on t'ed as "on ted" but as "ont ed". The t' may be written as a prefix of the following word, but, is pronounced at the end on the preceding word. Also, head is not always pronounced "ed", but can also be pronounced "hear'd", quite literally hear with a d on the end (possibly a literal pronunciation of head.. he-ad). The t' before nail is pronounced, but, almost imperceptibly. It's neither "hit nail" or "hit t nail" with an exaggerated pause between t and n. Subtle, but, it's in there. Obviously, it's theer not there. Here and theer.. to rhyme, not here and there to be spelt the same.
Southerners, can never get the inflections right when trying to do Northern speak.
It's Grim Up North!
I just read the comments for the Video:
"jakecosta96
4 months ago
confused as to why liverpool was never mentioned "
"James Grimwood
2 months ago
It was stolen and sold at a car boot"
Priceless!!.
As far as Genius Shops are concerned; I went into one with a friend to get his iPhone 4 looked at, while he was waiting I looked around for the genius......couldn't find any and I could have done with buying a bagful.
It's a smart phone thing. Smart Phones have become an addiction for many and when someone with an addictive personality has their link to TwitBookPinBlog cut off they will get cranky. No where near the same level as drug or alcohol dependence, we are not at that stage (yet?).
Image is everything in the business world, and with so many ways of trashing a company the businesses get scared and bend to demands while saying fuck you through a grin. I'm sure they don't spend their evening hugging their knees crying in the shower over it though.
The situation is just slightly different.
Apple provides indeed excellent after-sales service. Every time I have gone to my local Apple Store, I have met people who were polite, knowledgable, and helpful, and have indeed fixed whatever the problem is. It's not "overpriced product" and "feeling entitled", the cost of the excellent service is just included in the cost of the product.
The only problem is that many people are so used to the "service" at other stores that they don't expect any help and don't even try. They have a problem and you have to tell them at least three times that they just have to go to the nearest Apple Store and their problem will be sorted out.
Gnasher,
likewise, when I had a problem with my MacPro, the staff in the Apple store fixed it pronto.
I did however get some funny looks in the process, probably due to me getting the aforementioned VERY HEAVY machine from the car park to the 'shop' in my sons' pushchair (stroller to our American cousins).
J.
The real identity of FruitStandSlave...
Could easily be a scam.
Well, if I were Google, I would not dream to do such an evil thing to make that story a little bit easier to find in search results..
(besides, I wouldn't have to - Jasper is doing that already)
This nicely encapsulates all of Apple support.
Spent two hours on the phone trying to have my account details changed, with several escalations, and the whole outcome? Retards blocked the account. Lost all the settings and high scores.
Thankfully I didn't buy anything from the store, and with this experience most probably never will.
Important is that every time time they f**ck something up they say "Are you happy for me to ...." No I'm not happy, unless you solve my problem. But latter is not part of the script.
So, your real problem is the loss of your high scores?
The problem with changing account details is that hat also happens to be the way in which accounts get breached, so they have finally gone to town on that (it bloody took them long enough).
I have a decent password, complete fake recovery answers, 2FA enabled, do not use *any* iCloud facilities and I only use iTunes cards to pay in so there are no CC details to be had. If someone manages to get through, frankly, they deserve it.
Personally, the last iPieceofshit I had was back in 2008, an iPod touch.
Which, following an almighty apple (praise be upon them) update, bricked itself.
So I went to an apple store, thinking "oh, well they've got good customer service, they ought to be able to fix it."
No. They couldn't. Reason? not that the update was faulty - (it was, it was pulled 24 hours later) - but that there was a slight dent in the case which didn't meet apple "spec" for a dent, and hence everything that happened to the device was my fault. Even when it was caused by a clearly faulty firmware update. (i dented it accidentally about 6 months previous, and it hadn't skipped a beat since. Completely unrelated.)
Now I wasn't rude to the staff, having worked in retail myself, I know full well it's the quickest way to ensure that the service you recieve is laden with spite, but they were very rude to me, telling me apple updates were most deifinitely infallible and it was my own stupid fault I'd dented and broken my iPod which was now effectively a £200 brick. That apple were great and no one else was having this problem (again - there was uproar over the proceeding 24 hours at apple incompetance) So iLeft. and Apple have never recieved a penny from me since.
Thankfully, some nice hackers had written up a guide to unbricking online, which worked 15 minutes after I got home. Should have just done that in the first place.
But Apple can go sodomise themselves forever. And I will sneer at people who buy their products stating "good customer service" and "just works" because I have experienced neither. If that gets fanbois wetting themselves because of my blasphemous utterances up then so be it, indicate your allegiance by using that downvote button down there.
Except there is no proof to actually show these are genuine Apple employees could all just be a figment of someones imagination.
Ah, but this is where the delta shows between decent journalism (also available on this site, from people who have been lambasted in previous comments) and this piece of, well, rubbish.
It is really news? "Some idiot stated publicly that" - ooh, look it's Apple and I hate them, quickly write a piece? That's below poor, that's desperate. Must be a slow news day.
You could do the same with Google or even Microsoft, but the latter has at least been smart and seeded the Net with enough diversions by using the word "rap" and "crime" for their products (it buries such lists). I guess Google just forgot about "forgetting" that, or maybe it just can no longer keep up with the volume.
"The customer is always right" is absolutely correct, but usually misunderstood.
1. If the customer wants something and the customer pays for it, even if it is a stupid idea, as long as the customer gets what they want and you get paid for it, the customer is right.
2. Given the choice between being right about which is the best football team ever and not making a sale, and the customer being right about the best football team ever and you making a sale, the customer is right.
Now there are people coming to your shop that are useless, won't make you money but will just be a pain. These people are _not_ customers even if they think they are. And since they are not customers, they are not right.
There is no "freedom of speech" in the corporate and environments. I've seen people fired immediately for something much more benign than their blog. It's all about perception and maintaining the illusion that everything is just ducky, so people are more inclined to spend.
I did computer retail for about 10 years, back when Apple had an awesome dealer distribution channel and every computer company Apple, IBM, Comaq, et. al, had their own philosophy, when it came to properly marketing their products... Even if it went against what most would view as "good sense".
As for customers being belligerent or the "customer is always right". As someone else already said, they're right as long as they're paying. And while some people will get rude, belligerent, obnoxious and throw tantrums, there's never a reason to be rude or abusive to a customer. Simply show them the door.
I actually had someone take a swing at me because they were extremely frustrated with the computer vendor, so they attempted to take it out on me. I ducked, he missed and I pointed toward the door.. Never screamed, cursed or anything. He came back a week later and apologized.
While some of the comments left by Apple workers are funny, it's worth remembering that if you talk to the the staff of *any* company that deals directly with customers, you will get some staff who love the job, some who think it's OK, and some that hate the job. Almost certainly all the staff you talk to will have some customers they don't like, and some they do.
I worked for Blockbuster when I was a student, and while I didn't particularly like the job, I liked the staff I worked with and most of the customers. There were some who acted almost as if they owned me because they had just paid £3.50 to borrow a video overnight, and they went on the hate list. Had I had access to something like the blog in this article, I probably would have posted on it.
While I think there are good and bad shopworkers, I think we, the customer, need to look at how we treat them. That Supermarket Cashier might have a face like thunder and be a little abrupt when you buy some food. He or She might genuinely be rude, but bear in mind they might also have just been on the end of a 20 minute rant from a customer because the can of beans they bought a week ago had gone off. I've been there. Done that. I've had customers shout at me because they aren't happy about something I have no control over.
Most people are at the very least polite to the employees they deal with. There are, however, a lot who treat employees like something they stepped in.
I spent too many years working retail gigs when actual living-wage-paying jobs were thin on the ground.
I have come to the conclusion that you can ALWAYS tell people who have never worked in service jobs by the way that they treat service/retail workers. The rude, entitled ones have never been on the receiving end; the ones that are willing to at least be polite and treat you like a fellow human being have been there -- or have, at least, had empathy inculcated in them at some point.
It cuts both ways with the story.
While I agree that some customers can make you pull your hair out. Some people are overly needy and want every little thing fixed and throw a hissy fit when the problem is not cured.
Trouble is, what may be a tiny issue to that Apple employee may be a major crisis for the owner of the hardware. Part of making sure a customer is 100% happy is part of their job, if they don't like it then maybe they need to find a job where they don't deal with the public.
In fact we could say that from this reddit that there are some whiney arsed Apple Genius Bar employee's who think that they should be paid for not doing anything to make the customers happy.
There are always bad apples in any barrel.
Of course, when you hear statements that complain that the customer demanded the manager and the manager sided with the customer it sounds like maybe these employee's really are the bad apples rather than the customers. I bet many of them end up being sent on their merry way to work at Best Buy's or Staples and other places like that.
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My recent experience with Apple Retail has convinced me that they are the standard to which others should aspire.
I had to return a 3 month old booscase (case + external battery), as the mini USB socket snapped in the device "Not a problem" says the manageress on duty "would you like another one like that, or something different". No hassle, no fuss. You can if you like point out that this is whats legally required under the Sale of Goods act, but the fact I didnt have to utter the phrase, or mention statutory rights, or even face hassle because I didnt have the box already puts them ahead of everyone else.
Sadly, the next week, the same thing happened again. "Not a problem (my name - she remembered it), I remember you were in last week. Do you want something different this time?" Replace it for a juicecase, and happy to report no repeats. Anywhere else the second time I would be suspecting hassle, and accusations of me breaking the thing, but couldnt have been happier to see me or more simple.
Fault em all you like, but they are the gold standard of the retail experience
I have to agree, service at Apple has always been good for me - replacement of an intermittently faulty device with no questions asked other than something that might be used to repair/refurbish the device. I have also found that service in John Lewis has been equally good (and have bought standard Apple devices from them - same price, 3 year warranty on a couple of MacBook pros
You know what? that sounds an awful lot like every other retail job on the planet.
If you didn't want to get harassed by asshole customers then maybe you should have tried harder in school and got a proper job. Maybe you should use some of your savings to go to night school and get a decent education, until then suck it up.
@Passive smoking: see Stuart Castle's comment above, first.
"then maybe you should have tried harder in school and got a proper job"
There was a joking going around Calgary in the early 1980s:
Q. How do you get a geologist's attention?
A. Hey, waiter!
But I'm glad your education, night school or not, is working out for you.
I was with you until the "get an education and proper job" comment.
Not everyone can be a rocket scientist or Street financial crook wizard and in case you just woke from a very long nap, there is still a lack of good jobs almost all over the world.
Yes, retail sucks. I've been there and done that. There are arseholes on both sides of the sale.
Post occupy moment, entitled people are the favrourite punchbags of the world. It's easy to paint someone a villain by just calling them entitled. My own entitlementdar is up all the time and whenever I see someone moan about lack of froth in their coffee, I think "entitled"! Even my office has an (employee driven) internal web page called "first world problems" to keep us honest about our own entitlements.
But what is the meaning of entitlement when a customer who (over)paid for their gizmo wants to understand what it's capabilities or the terms of the deal ? Or, do they keep pestering the "geniuses" about how the iShiny thing will not bend ?
Unless someone explains this better, so far the person who is coming off as "entitled" is the iGenius who expects to get paid a decent salary but finds dealing with customers unworthy of their time/effort ?
My wife and I both have iPhones and she's got a MacBook Pro. (I'm the old fart lugging around the ThinkPad...) Whenever we've gone to Apple for help we haven't had any issues, but I think that's because we're nice reasonable people. In our experience, if you buy the warranty or have a legitimate problem during the manufacturer's warranty, they'll try to make things right. That's part of the price -- even my old fart ThinkPad with the accidental damage protection means that I can get a Lenovo guy to show up next day to fix something...and the laptop is about twice the price of Lenovo's crappy consumer machines.
That said, I can corroborate some of the stories in that thread. I've heard lots and lots of iTantrums whenever I've brought our things in to be looked at. It's usually business types whining about how important their work is and how they need a new device *right now* or the typical know-nothing consumer who feels they have the right to yell for buying an expensive phone. Telling someone under 30 that they'll be without social media in their pockets for a few days is like a prison sentence apparently.
Apple's in an interesting spot with their stores -- they don't just sell computers, they sell the Portal to Your Life for many people. Losing a phone or the data on it is pretty traumatic and Apple does their best to hide complexity from users that might allow them to recover things on their own.
"My job is to make you happy with your product, not to actually fix your product, more to fix the relationship you have with the brand"
Yup, I've occasionally come up against customer relations drones trained to work that way.
As for fixing them, see below.
"It pained me every time an asshole asked for the manager and got what they wanted. Meanwhile, all the nice people (who actually spend money) get screwed."
From the article, I can't help thinking that said "Genius" is just as pretentious as the customers he's complaining about.
If you pick and choose, you'll find an arsehole for every occasion. If you average things out, you'll find that life isn't the complete shithole you had been complaining about.
'Apple customers were described as "adult toddlers" and "assholes" stuffed
full of "entitlement".' I'll let this comment stand on it's own.
"There's something called the Apple effect. Since we see these girls so much, someone that is mediocre looking turns into a 8." then later "I make some decent money, have a beautiful girlfriend and a good pool of savings", he beamed. Umm, are you sure she isn't like a 6 and you're just skewed from working there? *ducks objects thrown at me* Just kidding!
And I agree, I wouldn't want to tell all and sundry who FruitStandSteve is -- Apple would sack him for sure. And honestly, I think people who have never been a customer service rep (either in phone or in store), salesperson, or even fast food worker, may assume that this is some kind of abberant thoughtcrime and must reflect on job performance. In reality, every place I've worked at had stories about "that one customer", or a few different regulars, or some generalities. People'd make sure their well out of earshot and let 'er rip, it helps let off steam. Most people are completely capable of thinking some customers a total dick, or totally incompetent, or whatever, but be completely civil interacting with them.
...ask 'em a technical question about a product, and they don't start reading off the box. Admittedly, there aren't any, so maybe that is the solution for other retailers?
Yes PC World, I'm looking at you.
Oh, and while I'm on, my theory is that disappointed apple customers tend to get extra pissy because they believe that the shiny kit is not just rather more reliable than average, but is guaranteed to be snafu free. They are actively encouraged in that belief, so who can blame them? Apple just has to man up and deliver support that closes the gap between reality and expectation.
""My job is to make you happy with your product, not to actually fix your product, more to fix the relationship you have with the brand," he said."
Having had a couple of online chats with their support staff, I could well believe this... The emphasis was on making me feel good, the problems were never resolved.
When faced with a customer with “Maximum” £X to spend I would shown them Item
1 one at X-20%,
2 one at X+5%
and while doing so move an X+30-50% item out of the way.
Often the customer would ask about the last one and I would politely tell them they could not have that one, out of budget, back to numbers 1. and 2.
I hate pushy sales and dishonesty so it genuinely confused me and made me just wrong to find the customers who stumped up for the one they “could not have” would come back next time to buy from us.
The cheap one you won't respect, it will be thrown into the glove box or fall out of your pocket.
The one you could barely afford will remind you how you should have tried harder at school, you will notice the irritating little faults
The one you really pushed the boat out for will be protected and cherished in a way that justifies the expenditure, you may overlook the small faults and feel rewarded by the imbued quality of the next step up on the consumerist ladder.
Not justifying it, an observation over a few years.