Anyone who's read my comments knows I don't usually have the patience to be charming or whatever. I had a battery start bulging with a polycarbonate MacBook and they just gave me a battery off the shelf no questions asked. There was some other underlying problem, and I eventually scrapped it. Its replacement eventually heated up the charging cable enough that the insulation browned and flaked away (computer side so it's not replaceable). I got a free replacement with zero hassle. Both were out of warranty.
Phone side, I had an OG iPhone SE and decided to get the battery replaced right towards the end of the free replacement period. The first/only appointment I could find was at the Emeryville store so I dropped the phone off. Unfortunately they had a runaway thermal event so the store got evacuated. I was told to come back later and pick up my phone. Eff that, I'm not sitting in traffic and paying for bridge toll for their mistake. It took a bit of persuasion, escalation, and a minor tantrum but they did FedEx my phone back to me. Eventually I dropped that and broke the screen. They couldn't fix it and they no longer sold the 64 GB version so I got a new 128 GB one off the shelf for the price of the repair ($130) without even asking. Or 32/64. Whatever.
So, yeah, Apple's been good to me with hardware stuff (with and without AppleCare). Clearly they're not making everyone whole. The problem as I see it is that Apple is relying almost entirely on the discretion of their retail staff instead of having a formal policy in place.
>The problem as I see it is that Apple is relying almost entirely on the discretion of their retail staff instead of having a formal policy in place.
So, I worked behind the genius Bar about a decade ago, and can tell you that at least as of then (say iPhone 3g through 6 era) this was definitely not the case. There’s a policy for everything.
The issue is that you’re an individual, dealing with another individual who is acting as the intermediary between you and an extraordinarily large and complex logistics and record-keeping system.
If you left feeling taken care of and treated fairly, from apple’s POV that’s a successful interaction. But the procedure for getting there may deliberately not be customer-facing; that doesn’t mean the procedure doesn’t exist.
I can answer questions if people are interested, with the caveat that my info is (thankfully) not fresh.
The other thing to mention is that regardless of policy, humans are humans.
If you're acting like a Karen to the guy behind the counter, they are going to give you the absolute bare minimum service. They know the policy, and they know exactly how it can be applied to make sure you have a shit day.
If you help them help you, they'll often go above and beyond to make sure you're looked after.
The simplest and most effective strategy I've found, both as a customer and a support rep, is to simply explain the problem you're experiencing at a physical level, keeping emotion and opinion out of it. Then cooperate with them and trust them to do their job.
Support people are almost biologically engineered to want to solve your problems, but do not appreciate being treated as a punching bag or emotional dumpster.
"My trackpad stopped working randomly, do you reckon we can fix this?" is far more likely to get a good response than "My trackpad is broken, I spent $1000 on this computer just 6 months ago! I can't believe you'd sell me such shit!"
It definitely didn't seem like there was any policy in place to deal with shipping a customer's items from a store to their home. If there/are policies in place they certainly don't feel consistent – and that's a problem IMO. There was also a pretty big shift when Ahrendts "revamped" the stores in 2016. Apple stores morphed from a convenient place to buy stuff and get support to a place where you go so Apple can further monetize you.
To the sibling comment: I've seen much worse approaches to safety stuff at other companies. Go buy a used steering wheel with a potentially defective Takata airbag for a car. Now try to get that air bag replaced or verified safe.
Or go buy a Coway air purifier. Notice how the fan is off balance and there are a bunch of complaints about these things periodically exploding? Try to get Coway to fix or replace it… lol.
> It definitely didn't seem like there was any policy in place to deal with shipping a customer's items from a store to their home.
Sure there is, it’s “we don’t do that” (at least in my day, and I’d be shocked if that’s changed). It’s a good explanation for why things seemed ad hoc and improvised—because they were. Sounds like the tech & manager were way off the reservation.
At least at my store and in my day, that’s the kind of exception we tried really hard to avoid. You never want to set an expectation you’re not going to be able to meet consistently.
Batteries swelling and cables getting so hot they're discolouring is what we call "safety critical" issues in the electronics industry.
Basically it means they're early indications of problems that can cause injury (in both these cases fire). Most companies I know are extremely lenient with warranty for these types of issues. I worked in support for a manufacturer (not Apple) for a long time.
Phone side, I had an OG iPhone SE and decided to get the battery replaced right towards the end of the free replacement period. The first/only appointment I could find was at the Emeryville store so I dropped the phone off. Unfortunately they had a runaway thermal event so the store got evacuated. I was told to come back later and pick up my phone. Eff that, I'm not sitting in traffic and paying for bridge toll for their mistake. It took a bit of persuasion, escalation, and a minor tantrum but they did FedEx my phone back to me. Eventually I dropped that and broke the screen. They couldn't fix it and they no longer sold the 64 GB version so I got a new 128 GB one off the shelf for the price of the repair ($130) without even asking. Or 32/64. Whatever.
So, yeah, Apple's been good to me with hardware stuff (with and without AppleCare). Clearly they're not making everyone whole. The problem as I see it is that Apple is relying almost entirely on the discretion of their retail staff instead of having a formal policy in place.