Greater Toronto Area, Ontario, Canada
Yorkdale Mall Apple Store
A friend of mine bought his Macbook Pro and opted to have the RAM maxed out at the Apple Store. When he returned to pick it up, they had broken the screen while putting in the RAM
they wanted him to wait for the replacement screen to come in but he's a Professor and needed the laptop right away. So a replacement was given to him, it was a 50/50 experience because he was given the replacement but how do you break a screen adding RAM to the laptop?
Downtown Toronto
Eaton Center Apple Store
The store is so close to my work so I regularly go there for myself and work. My experiences are great for my initial Genius Bar visits, horrible when waiting for parts to arrive, and great when picking up after the repair is complete so I give it a 50/50 although some of my experiences were quite frustrating tipping the scales for that specific incident.
Experience #1
I took an iMac from work to the Genius Bar because the user was experiencing multiple instances of freezing and crashes every day. So after a week of trying different things to remedy the problem I suspected the videocard might be the culprit because of some artifacts present before the freeze up. I brought it to the Genius Bar, the tech was great, I had screenshots which really helped isolate the problem. Then he checked to see if it was registered for Applecare, he couldn't find it in the system so he gave me a quote with a repair number and said he would order the parts. I was to figure out if it had Applecare and then call back with the repair number to find out if the parts had arrived after a week. I found the Applecare info, registered the system and called after a week, the parts hadn't come in yet.
After two weeks had passed I called in and still nothing. I was going on vacation and wanted to give an alternate contact, when I called the genius said they weren't able to add another contact but took my info and said the manager of the Genius Bar would call back. I didn't receive a call back but the next day I called back and the Genius was happy to take the info for the alternate contact. I get back from vacation, it's almost the middle of the 3rd week, no call from Apple Store about the parts. The user is pissed off at me, they are higher up the company chain so even suggesting a temp machine would get me shot. So I call in, the Genius tells me that the parts had come in and they tried to contact me but I didn't answer so the parts were sent back. I'm pissed off at this point because I gave an alternate contact and I'm getting crap from the user when there's nothing I can do. The Genius tells me that they had re-ordered the parts and it should be in by Friday. I try to console the user with this news, however low and behold on Friday I call in and the Genius tells me the parts aren't in and no Genius would have told me an arrival date. So the following week, a month later I call in and ask to speak to a manager. I get the manager and explain the whole thing, that it's been a month since the initial visit when the tech had ordered the parts. The manager puts me on hold then gets back on the phone and tells me they have the parts bring it in. I tell the user it's going to be 3-5 days, grab the computer and take it in. I call after 3 days to find out the progress and it's done so I go to pick it up. They replaced the videocard, they grabbed the system for me, we booted it up to make sure it looked normal and I told the user to really stress the system to make sure the problems were all gone.
I was quite happy with the initial and final Genius Bar visit, the problems were gone so the problem was fixed pretty fast. The problems waiting for the parts and the handling of the customer during that time was probably my worste experiences of all my experiences with that Apple Store. I think the managers should be alot easier to contact by some form, email, phone, etc. for user complaints.
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