Apple Highland Village

Reviews 3

MA

Mark Proeger

I hate giving bad reviews as it goes against my nature. I have purposely waited 8 days to make sure I was not being rash. I live in Africa but am from Texas. I brought in an African friends MacBook Air for the 3rd time in the last 12 months and the Genius Bar worker Matt refused to replace it. (For the record, I love Apple and we currently have 7 different Apple devices and have had almost zero problems with them!) My frustration was with 2 prior serious issues with this same computer in its first 9 months of life and now a 3rd serious problem and the fact that my friend lives in Cape Town with me, I really needed and counted on Apple to give me their customary excellent service. Instead Matt dug in his heels and acted as if they were being gracious to not charge a repair fee! This on a machine that had been repaired just 5 months prior and which broke again shortly after my returning it to my friend in Africa back in January of this year. I got Chris, a manager involved but he seemed to have no real authority and kept hiding behind Matts initial assessment. Chris was much nicer and I could tell he wanted to help but for some reason Matt seemed convinced that helping me with a replacement was 100% out of the question. I challenged them both nicely for a good 15-20 minutes but it seemed to have become a point of pride for Matt. (Note: I may be completely misinterpreting motives here.) I openly admit I am biased and may be misunderstanding the situation. I just know that I wouldnt want to return to this location. I felt as if Apple had the chance to make a really bad situation great and I explained why calmly and kindly multiple times but they seemed more concerned with the bottom line. I told Chris that this was the first time I had ever felt disappointed with Apples customer service despite being a loyal customer now for 10 years. I was particularly upset because it was on behalf of a friend from a country with a much smaller Apple footprint. I explained this all to no avail. Both guys are probably great men, but in my particular experience on this particular day, I felt disappointed in their attempts to resolve my issue and their unwillingness to just replace a clearly flawed machine. What happens the next time this computer breaks? Bear in mind, in the 17 months my friend has had it, she has already had about 5-6 months of no usage due to it being broken. This is just unacceptable. I will be sending a similar account to Apples customer service. Mark —

ST

Steven Chao

I love the store design (5 star) and Apple product (close to perfect) but the good experience ends right here. I dont like how Apple stand behind their product and the way they deal with "pre-owned" devices, and their people work at the "Genius Bar" are not so "Genius". Let me explain. I bought a used iPhone 4S, sometimes the sound didnt come out when I played music, etc, but I was able to use the external speaker when I was on a phone call. I searched all around the web, many people have the same problem due to different reasons from dirty to water damaged dock connector, some fixed the problem by cleaning it, some replaced them. When I went to this Apple store. I got the following answers from "highly trained" Apple employee. 1. Sir, the speaker is one lower left hand side (looking at the phone screen), I told her, no, its one the right. She took it from my hand and placed t her hand and said, "no, Im pretty sure its on the left (look on the back, which is correct now that shes looking at the back side). I said, "its on the right when you look at the phone screen", she repeated again, "No, sir, the speaker is on the left". I was thinking "Okay, genius, Im not going to argue with you". 2. She took it to the back and had a technician looked at it and told me the speaker was not working and it needs to be replaced but Apple does not repair iPhone if somebody else has opened it before (the screws holding the battery connector were not present which I knew). I told her this is not a warranty claim, Im a paying customer asking you to repair an Apple product but she replied by the same answer which sounds like a coached uniform answer. I left when I heard what she said because they didnt care about their customer and the technician was either lazy, stupid or told by the Apple big boss not to tell the truth. Then, I fixed the phone myself (replacing the dock connector) after the unhappy experience with Apple. Not only they didnt know whats wrong with their own product (people posted on most the on-line support forums know better than Apple store employees), and they refuse to repair their own product because two battery screws are missing. Has anybody have their car dealer refuse to service their car because they replace the car battery by private repair shops or by car owners?

RO

Roger Leal

I visited the store on Thursday Sep 17th since my phone crashed with the newest software update. I had the most horrible, arrogant and vicious Customer Service I could ever experience. For starters, just right when I was making the appointment, and again with the technician - even before he started working on my phone - I was already told twice that I could get a replacement for $199 or just get a new phone. I heard these word at least four more times before I stopped counting. I was there first at 12:30 and then from 2:45 PM to almost 6:30 PM and the technician was unable to fix my problem, but always willing to make a sale. After he finally gave up and recognized he had to replace my phone without any extra charges - other customers came during the day with the same problem - he came with the excuse that my phone had been modified, therefore it couldn´t be replaced and I had to pay for a new one. I found this very questionable since he opened the phone twice and it was at the third time (for the replacement) he found this information. (Which later Apple Store Galleria found out it wasn´t true) Talking to the Manager just made things worse. He just backed up his technician with a condescending attitude, offered me again the possibility to buy a new phone, and during the conversation, he very pretentiously said things like "Your phone doesn´t even exist to Apple" and "You should only buy Apple Devices directly from Apple Store or Apple Website to guarantee it´s all original, not even from Carriers".(1) - My phone, exactly as it was, was bought at the Apple Store at Aventura Florida. To calm down the argument, they said they were going to try a couple of things to try to fix it, unsuccessfully of course. At the end when the technician gave me back my phone he asked "DO YOU WANNA SEE OUR NEW PHONES?" (1) One point I need to be clear: When talking to the Manager, I did said my phone was bought in a carrier, and then he said his arrogant answer. Later back at home reviewing the phone´s history and then corroborated by the Galleria Store, the phone was bought at Apple Aventura (Fl). This made the Manager´s Words worse. (The other manager is not angel either). - Some people just believe they´re saving the World because they work for Apple.