SCROLL DOWN TO READ THE POST
Apple store
http://counternotions.com/2007/11/26/punching-in-interview/
Over the past few weeks I’ve had to make multiple trips to my local Apple store to pick up this, that, and the other. I’m the typical guy in that I when I go shopping I don’t actually “shop.” I go in, get what I need, and get out as fast as possible.
At most stores this is easy to do…except for Apple stores.
I’ve yet to actually need any help from an employee in the Apple stores. I know exactly what I want and I just want to purchase it and get back to my office to use it. But it would seem Apple doesn’t care to actually have a set checkout spot. No place to to get in line and buy stuff. Nothing. You just have to aimlessly wander around the store and hope to A) get approached by a free employee or B) randomly pick an employee that’s helping someone and follow them around until they’re done.
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
I honestly don’t understand how this entire setup is a good idea. Sure I get that they want you to interact with the employees so they can hopefully sell you more stuff…but what about the people like me who just need to go in and buy something? I spent almost 15 minutes the other day in fairly uncrowded Apple store just waiting for an employee to free up so I guy by an adapter.
Yes, I’m ranting a bit here. But I really am curious what benefit Apple sees in setting up the store like this. Are all Apple stores like this? Or did I just luck out with the one closest to me?
When you buy a Mac, you are paying for more than a computer. You are paying for advertising, and subsidizing the Apple store, which is a learning center for Mac users who are having problems. When I went there, there were more Mac geniuses than customers (you pay for that in the price of a Mac), but none of the geniuses could help me, because I didn’t buy my Apple products at the sacred temple. There were twice as many employees on the floor than customers, and I had about 4 people involved in my issue – 4 people to say they can’t help me. They had a scrum about whether or not to install an Apple Airport Extreme wireless “card” in an Apple computer. Funny, because I thought it was an Apple store. But it is a sacred temple of the über-knobs. I’m all for employing a lot of people in a recovering economy, but this is why a Mac costs 60% more than it should. Some of the extra costs go to the innovative design and higher quality components, but it’s all made in China, just like Dell or HP. You can even get Mac clones that run OS X from Quo computers that are less than half the price of the comparable Mac. In other words – Macs are not a good value. You pay for advertising and employment for snobby college students in Apple stores. Great, you go to Stanford, but you can’t fix my Mac for a really lame reason… I think I met the future Lloyd Lee (from Entourage) in the Apple store…
I am a grown woman. I am 29 years old. I was dressed in normal clothes — a plain blue t-shirt, jeans, a flannel overshirt, sneakers. I don’t know how or why this employee could not see me, but I was extremely offended by the way I was treated. I have a credit card. I use computers — in fact, I intended to use the MacBook Air for my volunteer position as a CSS/XHTML coder. I’m the person who walked into the store ready to buy myself a new computer, not my husband. Yet Bill could barely bring himself to look at me, and appeared more interested in selling my husband the peripherals that went along with the computer than in selling me, the actual buyer, the product I was willing to "make the switch" for.
I hope you’ll let the managers at the Bellevue Square store know that women use computers, too, and that if a couple comes into a store to buy one, perhaps it would be a good idea to ask which of them is making a purchase. And if the answer is "a girl", please tell the employees to talk to her, and not her partner, brother, spouse, or some random guy standing ten feet away from her, as I believe Bill might have done.
I can honestly say I haven’t had a customer service experience this awful for several years (a fast-food restaurant manager who threw a pen at my friend when she asked for his regional manager’s name comes to mind). If I decide to get myself a MacBook Air despite all this — and right now, I’m not sure I will; if Bill’s attitude was typical of what I’ll face should I need technical support or any other sort of customer service from Apple, I don’t want any part of it — I certainly won’t be going to one of your stores to be ignored by an employee; I’ll be ordering it online.
Filed under: Uncategorized
About Joyce Valenza
Joyce is an Assistant Professor of Teaching at Rutgers University School of Information and Communication, a technology writer, speaker, blogger and learner. Follow her on Twitter: @joycevalenza
ADVERTISEMENT
SLJ Blog Network
Happy Poem in Your Pocket Day!
This Q&A is Going Exactly As Planned: A Talk with Tao Nyeu About Her Latest Book
More Geronimo Stilton Graphic Novels Coming from Papercutz | News
Environmental Mystery for Middle Grade Readers, a guest post by Rae Chalmers
The Classroom Bookshelf is Moving
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT