My Imac died over the week and I went to the Apple store last nite to pick up a new one. Just got up and they had emailed me a survey to fill out about my shopping experience. So I filled it out. Felt fucking GOOD too.
Here's the answer I gave when asked to explain why I had rated my shopping experience at the Apple store so low (a 5 out of 10):
I almost walked out of the store after standing around for 20+ minutes and not being able to find anyone to help me give my money to your company. I walked in fully ready to drop two to three grand and I NEEDED a computer for my work but I almost gave up on the whole endeavor. When I eventually got help, the sales person was GREAT. Very helpful and smart and friendly. That was a great experience. But before he showed up, I was told- by someone in an orange shirt- that he could help me but was not allowed because it was not his department. He was like, "You need to go find one of the guys in the light blue shirts to help you". And I'm like, "I'm trying to give your company my money...why is it my job to hunt down a fucking salesperson? Why is it my job to figure out your stupid shirt color scheme and make sure that I pick the RIGHT guy in the RIGHT shirt cause otherwise, the person I pick- while totally capable of helping me- simply will not?!?" Come on guys- that's just piss poor service and the Apple name demands much, much better. I know Jobs is out on sick leave but what, the boss can't take a few months off without you guys forgetting your core values?
Let me give you a little hint: if you've got a store FULL of fucking people who are NOT HELPING ANYONE and a customer walks in wanting to spend some cash in your store, then you should help that person. Now I know this is a crazy idea, but bear with me: see EVEN IF you are not wearing the right colored tee shirt but you are capable of helping the customer, you should really help the customer.
But again, once I FINALLY got a salesperson- and thank GOD he had the proper shirt color so he could help me- he really was fantastic. He knew his stuff, was very friendly, very helpful, and it was a great shopping experience once I finally got help.
So overall, I give the experience a 5/10. The actual sales person experience was like a 9. And I don't mind waiting...sometimes you have to wait. But the REASON I had to wait 20+ minutes was simply stupid, insulting, and idiotic and so that is why I rate the overall shopping experience much lower.
This is why it's a bad idea for me to fill out surveys when I'm tired :)
David
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64 comments:
Hah, I rarely even fill out those surveys.
Nothing worse than walking around waiting for service, happens soo often in electronics stores. They've all got their respective 'departments' and anything else outside is too intimidating to attempt.
Bugger that your Mac broke, I'm looking at getting one soon.
Bet it's frustrating that you can't go to E3 (unless you're going today!), but I can't wait to see footage of your game on the floor! ;) Will we get an announcment before the next E3 though?
Hope you're having a good week David.
you rock David. Why use mac instead of windows?
I feel your pain, sir. I have a Mac for school and my keyboard went to shit on me and the Apple Store tried to fuck me over saying it would cost like a grand to fix or something like that, even though I had insurance and everything that SHOULD have covered it.
They gave me a little card that advertised a company that is affiliated with Mac that could also help me. I took it there, and they said my insurance covered and my keyboard was fixed for free.
Fuckers. Mac store is full of shit. There are some nice people there, but the whole color coded B.S. is really, really stupid, I agree. I'll try to find the name of those people and give it to you. Not sure if they have the same store in CA as they do in GA but I'll tell you one thing, it's a hell of a lot easier to do it there then it is at a Mac store.
-G.W.
This is what we refer to in the industry as "Apple Quality(TM)." One of the many reasons (including hideous interface conventions) that I won't touch a Mac with YOUR dick.
heh...macs.
Fun times...your ending line made me chuckle. But hey, sounds like they deserved it, so it's all good. At least you're being honest, and honesty never hurts anyone in the end unless they choose to ignore it.
Easy solution to all of the problems of Apple: Go Linux. :)
Ugh, I love that you at least admit that you were being cranky David, honesty goes a long way.
My opinion on this is YES, it does take 10-20+ minutes to get help in those stores, but it's not always the employees faults. I know at the MOA Apple Store in my state, the situation is the same, but the problem is that they are constantly swamped by new customers and perusing idiots who don't even intend on buying new stuff, so they get backlogged with their shit.
Oh, and to all the people suggesting "Mac trouble solutions" here in the comments? Just because that small tiny little discretion happened doesn't mean you need to come here flaming Apple for doing the best they can in crazy situations. David clearly understood that (See actual customer service score: 9) and you should too. See, that's the kind of comments I leave when I'm cranky tired.
What the christ? How did your iMac shit the bed? Shit, mine has lasted for over 5 years and it's still kicking (sans the inevitable slowdown due to copious RAM usage...)
Here in Tucson, we have a Mac store called Simutek that are REALLY helpful with repairs and stuff.
Yes, standing around 20 minutes looking like a doofus is not fun. Especially if the store isn't fucking busy in the slightest.
well that shirt system is shite.
I live in the UK and you can't walk into any electronics store w/o a sales person been right on you and while that can be irritating in its self at least you can always tell them to fuck off (or in my case "no I don't need any help thanks")
And they rarely bother you twice unless you ask.
The shirt system is utter bollocks.
Even in a massive store this makes no sense.
great answer to their survey dave. ive had ppl tell me that theyve had the same BS experience at the apple store. i dont like APPLE products cause ima a PC :P but that is just ridiculous having to find a rep in a certain shirt color. they need to have a color key for when u walk in the store so u know whos who :D stupid macs....lol
Wow...actually never been in a Apple store but that sounds quite horrible. It always amazes me how such a stupid idea can get approved by so many higher ups in a company like that.
RIP Jaffes iMac
Not to sound slanted one way or another, but I hear about Macbooks dying a lot more often than other notebooks. That may just be an indicator of their popularity.
I'm sorry for posting again, but people need to shut up about the shirts already. It's no different than having a nametag with your department on it. Would you go buying a washer and dryer at Best Buy from someone that works in Mobile? No. You wouldn't. Just because Apple's store is smaller, does NOT mean that they operate any differently. Not everyone is the GO TO SALESPERSON. Some people are iPod specialists, Mac specialists, software, repair, etc. They all wear nametags and shirts to show that.
^
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100% correct.
You said "endeavor", lol.
Fair point, but they wouldn't refuse to help you and make you wait at the same time. That's the real issue. All employees should be able to help at least in general, at least to let the customer know they haven't been forgotten, and if they don't know, then they can explain that when and if it comes up. But to say "No I can't help you because it's not my area" is not the way to do it. You at least help them how you can.
I mean, the guy Jaffe went up to even said he could have helped him, but that he wasn't allowed to. That's not how it should work. It's one thing to not help if you simply can't because you're not knowledgeable about that area since it's not yours, but especially if you do know you should be free to help customers in these kinda situations even if they're not in your area.
That's so weird. I was in the Apple store two days ago and basically the same thing happened. I ordered an iMac like a year ago and love it, but usually buy my shit online. I finally go into the store, grab the Sims 3 and wait in a line I assumed was the checkout line. After waiting about 20 minutes, the guy tells me I'm in the "tech" line and need to find someone in a light blue shirt to check me out with their portable device. Well everyone in a light blue shirt seemed to helping someone figure out how an iPod works.
First of all, what the fuck. Who doesn't know how to use a fucking iPod? They've been around for like 10 years. Jesus Christ. Second of all, why the fuck wouldn't the tech guy be able to ring me out. The portable device thing is cool and all, but give the fucking tech guy one. I love Apple and all their products, but holy shit. No wonder why there aren't any jobs anymore. Companies need to ditch the retards.
Well,thank god your not color blind otherwise you'd be fucked.
IMac....
Why would you even get a mac?
If you had a PC and one piece crapped out on you, you could always replace that one piece. Having to replace only one part would cost you a lot less then having to buy a whole new Mac
I cant understand why anyone would get a Mac, its over priced hardware with limited compatibility.
waiting for your post about E3 :)
Fucking HATE pcs....LOVE macs...LOVE Apple....I'm a total Apple whore.
awww u dirty lil apple whore xD PCs for teh WIN. i have no probs with my pc, but my friends mac has soo many probs its CRAZY. XP or linux is where its at ;-P
I work for a bigbox retailer and have a cousin that works at an apple store in texas. So i'm gonna attempt to chime in and give you all some insight into how an apple store/computer retailer works.
Apple stores have been around for 5+ years. I remember them always having diffrent shirts (techs vs sales people), maybe I'm wrong. My company uses three different shirt types and I think its asinine, too. It does work however, I can easily tell someone to "look for the yellow shirt coworker when you get to that department". At the same time though if apple is anything like the company I work for, the orange shirts (greeters) make close to minimum wage... whereas the "sales" guys make double that.
The orange shirts are called 'concierge', and they are exactly that. They work their entire shift directing traffic. I think apple started with them because their retail stores were so jammed, it was more of a headache to find someone back then, than it is now. The purpose is to find the appropriate people to help customers IE: the tech, manager, sales people, etc. I wonder if the person that spoke to David said "I need to" rather than "You need to". Maybe David was paraphrasing? I assume stating the latter to a customer could get that orange shirt a write up, or worse... as that is the orange shirt's job description to a 'T'.
Graham,
Regarding a broken keyboard for a grand. You're an idiot, in a nutshell. Obviously you're not giving us the whole story. A thousand dollar repair is a very expensive repair, and requires extensive damage to the machine if it was quoted so high. You probably spilled beer on it in the dorm. Secondly, lookup the definition of insurance. If you wreck your car and take it to the dealer and ask if it covered under "warranty", they laugh at you. Would you take a HDTV back to a retailer if it fell off the wall and the screen cracked? Would you assume that was under the "warranty" ?
CriminalMethod,
Sorry to hear that. Regarding the techs though, their last priority (as funny as this sounds) is to ring you up. They have 10minutes to help each person in their respective line, and they take a new person every 10 minutes for their entire shift. If they fall behind, even for 3-5 minutes to ring someone up... it can cascade. As such, every single person after ringing you could potentially be perceived as "late" and thus pissed off at the tech. Retail perception is that waiting 1-3 minutes feels like 1-3 minutes, waiting 5 feels like 10, waiting 10-20 feels like an hour (not my numbers, there was a case study done). The reason; they were given an appointment time. Its hard to catch back up if you fall behind. I used to work at an officemax copy center and people would always ask me " why can't you do this now?!?! Rather than beating around the bush or apologizing because its "business etiquette", I would tell them the truth; "I helped about 20 people before you and I have to see the three people patiently waiting after you, I can check it in and get to it when I have time." Also those people that used to tell me "I'm a lawyer and I need this". Fuck you, asshole... you're no more important than the student, the mother, the doctor or the graphic designer.
Anyway, thats all I got. Hopefully this helped some of you understand the inter-workings of the retail giants.
lol that was the best response to a survey question EVER!
The person that reads that will lol for sure.
Let's add this up here: Customer + interest in buying a product = paycheck. If people decided one day not to work our economy would be non-existent. Yeah, I understand your frustration, Jaffe, you would think that the whole U.S. work force is controlled and run by a bunch of pimple headed fuck tard teenagers hating the world and who go emo because they can't sort they're shit out.
You deserve it buying a piece of crap like an iMac.
Oh god damn David Jaffe pisses me off. I came here thinking he was an actual game developer so I had some respect for the guy but I apparently overestimated the work that a Lead Director does. All this guy does is talk about useless shit in his life and doesn't even realize that he is being spoiled with fame from the development team who worked on the game he directed. E3 passes and he doesn't even tell us any news when that is clearly what we are looking for. Instead, he just talks about his poor 20 wasted minutes with apple. This guy is nothing but a fat piece of shit who likes to brag about shit a lot.
You rich bastard you... wish I had 3 grand to drop on a new computer.
eric = FAG this is a personal blog u fuckin tool...GTFO
Oh yeah and one more thing, Eric...the reason you're not getting E3 news right now on this blog is causeI didn't go to E3 this year cause I was busy WORKING on the motherfucking game! You do realize that game developers MAKE games, yes? We don't REPORT on them...
And are you really so fucking daft that you can't find any E3 coverage anywhere else on the net?
David
Ughh, Eric, you embarrass us all.
FACE!!!!
oh i was saying face to apple getting pwned by the survey... now this one is for david pwning eric
FACE!!!!!
hell yea u get him criminal ;-P if he wants E3 reporting, muhfucker needs to go to kotaku or joystiq or something. i guess some ppl are just born mentally unstable xD
don't you all just hate douches like Eric?
hey david did you see the god of war 3 e3 demo.... where kratos rips helios head off that was AMAZING>......... EPIC
Jaffe, I work for Apple, and let me apologize for what is a stupid fucking employee. We wear the shirts because people apparently complained about not knowing who to talk to for sales, appointments, tech help, etc. That's why we wear the shirts. However, there's no rule that says you can't help someone if you're wearing a different shirt. Unless you're a specialist and someone wants a repair, you have to help them. A major rule we have is get in, get out. That employee is an ass, and you should have asked for a manager (even though 99 percent of the time, when a customer asks for a manager, we just tell them they're busy). The shirts help, but that employee made it seem like you were in the wrong store or something. At the very least, they need to radio in and ask for someone to help.
Whatever store you were in, fuck them.
I love OS X to death (especially Dashboard), but I can't STAND Apple. Over priced hardware, Steve Jobs is an egotistical OCD asshole, their commercials are nothing but smug lies and misrepresentations...
Personally, I use both a Mac and a PC and I hate a lot of the fanyboyish crap that goes on between the entrenched numbskulls from both sides. Both are good OSes, both have their faults, both have their benefits. It all just comes down to which is more comfortable to YOU, the individual.
Crappy that your computer died and your retail experience was frustrating. At least you got everything resolved in the end, and you definitely did the right thing filling out that survey, SO many people get pissed and just bitch and moan about it. At least your input can help them address the issue and hopefully work towards correcting it in the future.
Glad that it worked out man.
I personally can't stand any sales people, it doesn't matter the business. I usually research stuff fairly extensively before I go shopping and find that the sales people typically don't know much about the product they are paid to sell, or even worse they give me false information. I usually only talk to a sales person if I want a laugh.
PC = Star Wars Mac = Star Trek
You know who wins..
PC's have so many problems with them. I had one through college and I loved it, but it crapped out so many times and was just all over the place in terms of unnecessary shit thy put on it. It got to the point where it was recommended by Windows support that I just do a system recovery about once a week to make it work decently. Then I got an iMac about a year ago and its so much better. Plain. Simple. Easy. Never thought I'd like Mac, but I love it
Personally, I have yet to have Vista crash on me, and XP rarely ever did. Maybe 2 or 3 times. Win95 crashed maybe a dozen or so times, but by the time Win2k rolled out, Win95 was solid. I don't recall Win3.x crashing, but I was way young back then.
CriminalMethod, all in all, it's just about what you prefer. I've built my own PC since I was 16 (so, like 97) and my eMachine crapped out on me. Most resellers (Dell, HP, etc) tack on so much extra, buggy, crappy software that it makes things way worse. They don't add anything, and just cause problems. I've run a pure Windoews install for years (my eMachine came with zero extra software) and it's always worked well for me. As I said, I think a lot the stability problems come specifically from resellers tacking on extra crap-ware. Still, not everyone can take the time or wants to fiddle with building a computer, and that's perfectly understandable.
Hmm...first off sorry to hear that your Mac died...secondly - wow that is a terrible reason to wait 20 minutes. Having a guy tell you "YEA you need to find a guy with THISSSS COLORED SHIRT"..............I seriously would not have known what to say at that moment.
Anyway, glad to hear that you ended up with a great guy that could help you.
I keep wondering whether or not I should switch from PC to a MAC. The only thing is that it feels somewhat expensive to me. I usually think about the amount of RAM the laptop has...(I buy laptops mainly)...I got a $400 computer with 3gb RAM, but a MacBook Air (which is gorgeous by the way) would cost me $1500...for 2gb RAM, plus the computer I bought for $400 has 250gb hard drive.
Also the laptop has 2GHz compared to the 1.86 on the MacBook Air.
It's just weird for me, but then again if I have a huge passion in editing film (which I do)...that would be a big reason on why I would buy a Mac (Final Cut Pro for the WIN!!)...and also the graphical interface is really neat on Mac OSX.
As for now though...I'll stick with Sony Vegas which is doing just great for me.
I will buy a Mac one day though...just for Final Cut. Even if it means $1100 more.
@Deja Vu,
I'd put my money on Sony Vegas. I liked Final Cut Pro, but I think that Vegas has just a few more controlling points for me to use. I don't mind either platform, PC or Mac, but I don't exactly like Steve Job's ego...
Oh, btw, Jaffe, if you hate Windows on PC, but need a cheapo comp, consider Ubuntu Linux. It's awesome. Hell, you could even install it on ps3... (get the PPC edition w/ the boot file and schtuff)
HEY DAVID,
I wanna talk to you.
I'm from Brazil, my name is Henrique. Please, send me an e-mail:
thecobom_@hotmail.com
I think you'll like what I want to say to you. Please, don't forget!
I send it like "Anonymous" because I don't know how to send it another way!
@warezlbanez
Thanks for the opinion man! I guess I'd stick with Sony Vegas then haha!
Apple = fascists, get a pc and install linux on it, free software is good, especially when you can run one of the many windows operating systems accrued over the years on Sun's virtual box on top of linux. I ditched apple in 97, I suggest you do the same. Apple hardware blows and so does its proprietary OS. IMHO.....
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