Trip to the Apple Store and Observations

[stephent2]

I have a Mac Mini M1 that started acting odd a month ago. If I watched something streaming, YouTube, Prime, HBO, close out and come back an hour later, nothing will stream through a browser or an app until I restart.

Weird problem. I went through all the steps I know to fix it up to a clean install not using Time Machine, hard drive leveled, all app’s fresh, new OS,.. issue was still there. Spend an hour on the phone w AppleCare, no fix. “Bring it in the the Apple Store and have a genius look at it”. Ok, left the computer at the store, next day they call, all hardware tested good, but in conversation found they didn’t test correctly. Just ran a video and then ran another and all was “good”. Well, that’s not my issue. Won’t play video after sitting a few hours. They reinstalled the firmware and gave the unit back, I restored from backup. Same issue. Bring it back to the store for a “Lead” to look at it.

This is the fun part. Talked to the first guy, gonna call him nose ring guy. Explain the issue, he starts by telling me everything they couldn’t do. Like test it properly,.. under the circumstances that my issue happens. No, they have methods. We’re getting nowhere, I ask for his supervisor, get another guy. Same deal but not as irritating as nose ring guy. Telling me how they have to test and they can’t find an answer for my issue. Finally a woman comes out of the back room, she’s the manager of the repair department. For the fiftieth time I state the problem, when it occurs, etc. She says “I’ll test it just as you suggest, I’ll set it up right now and check it, call you back by 7:00 this evening.”

Which she did, and of course my issue didn’t happen. (We tested my local network and even connected the Mac to my iPhone hotspot when on the phone to AppleCare during my first attempt to resolve the problem, still happened). I asked if she would try it overnight and see what happens, she said of course.

I’ll know today what Apple will do when she calls back at 11:30. But she did float some possible options even if they can’t replicate the problem.

So now the observation: Every man I spoke with wanted to tell what they couldn’t do. All the women I spoke with had none of that attitude, it was “we can help”. The women were positive, the men wanted an argument or to prove their vast knowledge,..

I’m ready for the women to take over, I’m tired of all this macho BS.

 

[Esquire Jones]

Maybe the first time I’ve heard of any Apple employee described as macho.

 

[stephent2]

Maybe the first time I’ve heard of any Apple employee described as macho.

Nose Ring Guy would scratch your eyes out. But yes, macho or not, typical male behavior.

 

[Lowspeid]

I don’t think that’s “male” or “female” behavior. It’s more that some people have zero humility and suck at customer service, and some people have humility to actually listen, and care enough to try and serve. I’ve run into plenty of women. Who were terrible to deal with trying to fix customer service problems, and just as many men who were great at customer service. Humility (likely brought about by experience) is the real issue, imo.

 

[Esquire Jones]

Yeah, if it was framed as “rude, condescending, and unhelpful” I would have to agree.

 

[stephent2]

The woman who is helping (service dept mgr) knew exactly what I was talking about when I mentioned the difference in treatment between the female and male employees.

And she offered a darn good solution, trade in my M1 Mac mini (2021 model) for a new M2 model. And offered double the Apple trade in value. She changed my experience from crappy to pretty darn good.

 

[Swirling Snow]

Your mistake was, you went in there acting like you knew stuff. That just puts them on the defensive, and they have to dominate you. If they can piss you off, that's cool. They know how do deal with angry customers.

The boss saw a reasonable man making a reasonable request. She complied, and didn't miss the chance for the upsale.

 

[SRHmusic]

This is also showing a difference in experience with troubleshooting. But clearly the first few guys were only trained to follow the script from training.

The first step in troubleshooting is to reproduce the failure. Without doing that you (er, they) have done nothing toward solving the problem. The goal is to find the root cause of the problem. Proof of having an understanding of the root cause is that you can take another unit (or the original one) and make the problem come and go at will.

I seriously doubt anyone at the customer facing Apple store will have the time and experience to do this for every unique problem that shows up. This is probably some kind-of "edge case," that takes more time and effort. I guess it's cheaper to upsell/trade up to a later or more current model than to actually solve the problem on your model. Kind of sad that it comes to that.

 

[richiek65]

I will never step foot inside an Apple store, nor buy a single Apple product for as long as I live due to the terrible customer service and sheer vapidity of their staff. 2 events about 6 years ago and I'm still riled up!

Here's the first
One of my kids ipads (that he needs everyday for school) needed work. In the first instance I did a walk in, only to be told I needed to make an appointment to even talk to anyone. Soonest appointment was 3 weeks away. Annoying AF, but ok I'll manage.

Turn up at 1155 for my 12noon appt 3 weeks later, they say I'm early, they take my number and say grab a coffee from the Cafe immediately outside the apple store and they'll text me when they are ready to deal with me. I go straight out and order my coffee, bang on 1200 I get the text to say they're ready, about 30secs later I grab my coffee from the barista and walk back in at 1201 (literally) and the same person says I'm late for my appointment and they have cancelled it. I kept very calm saying that they themselves had told me to get a coffee and blah blah blah and I pointed out that I walked back in with said coffee at 1201 after following their instructions to the letter. They said because I wasn't in the store at 1200 they had to cancel. I went a bit Karen-ish but they wouldn't bring out a manager.

Knowing that I was going to get nowhere, I asked them thru gritted teeth when the next appointment was. 6 - SIX! - weeks was the answer. I nearly lost my whole kit and kaboodle at this ingrate..

Don't get me started on the second event..

 

[stephent2]

Been an Apple customer since our LC-520, that's 1993. In the late '90s I was hired by the school system to support the Macs for the county, in classrooms, offices, etc. A friend had an IT company supported big clients, Emory, huge graphics, firms, PR firms, newspapers and asked that I be their Mac guy. Did that for 10 years, went on my own, everyone I'd worked with before asked me to remain their Apple guy, luckily there was no competition clause back then. Worked as a Mac consultant for years until I couldn't stand it (personal reasons) and went to play music and build guitars full time.

I mention nothing of my experience when dealing w/ folks at the Apple Store or phone support. I dislike know-it-alls and I try to avoid coming off as one. Hence my aversion to geek guys who go for the one-upmanship foolishness in conversation. "My knowledge is greater than yours". Lordy,..

In the Store's defense, all appointments were made for the same or next day (and it's a busy store). My one request for a superior was taken care of immediately.

Yesterday I left w/ an Apple gift card for $807, for my year and a half old M1 Mac mini (with AppleCare) that they couldn't replicate my issue on. Twice the trade in value for the machine. Ordered my M2 Mac mini replacement in the car on my phone.

So, Apple came through, to their credit.

 

[stxrus]

The first step in troubleshooting is to reproduce the failure. Without doing that you (er, they) have done nothing toward solving the problem.

You can’t fix an intermittent problem.

Dozens of times, when I worked in broadcasting, a field cameraman would bring a machine in saying it wouldn’t record. I’d fire it up, hit record, and, lo and behold, it went into record. I’d tell them to bring the machine back when it is broken. I can fix it if it’s broken. If it’s not broken I can’t fix it.

 

[stephent2]

You can’t fix an intermittent problem.

Dozens of times, when I worked in broadcasting, a field cameraman would bring a machine in saying it wouldn’t record. I’d fire it up, hit record, and, lo and behold, it went into record. I’d tell them to bring the machine back when it is broken. I can fix it if it’s broken. If it’s not broken I can’t fix it.

Since they couldn’t replicate my issue, which was not intermittent on the Mac mini at my house, the assumption is environmental or user error. I’ve tested my environment, the wifi connection and never an issue w other machines. We have several using the same connection, same brand of computer, two M chips and one Mac intel.

But it’s true, electronics work differently “in the field” and the best test is in the operating environment.

 

[Willie Johnson]

All my family but me are Apple users; I refuse to go into the Apple store. We had iPhone problems with two devices and I took them to the cell phone carrier retail location instead--in and out, no playing around.

 

[colchar]

I restored from backup. Same issue.

Did it ever occur to you that something you have on there is causing the problem? Probably the only way to figure out what it is would be to restart from scratch and load one thing (ie. app, programs, etc.) at a time and then run it for several days to see if the problem occurs. If not, then load the next thing and repeat the process.

 

[stephent2]

Did it ever occur to you that something you have on there is causing the problem? Probably the only way to figure out what it is would be to restart from scratch and load one thing (ie. app, programs, etc.) at a time and then run it for several days to see if the problem occurs. If not, then load the next thing and repeat the process.

"Did it ever occur to you"

Love the conversation starter,.. did that before I called Apple the first time. On this machine I'm only running Logic and Ozone 10 Advanced (plug in), pretty simple to do. Not a complex set up.

 

[ElvisNixon]

Can’t comment on Apple stores since I never had a reason to. I buy directly from Apple.

I will comment about the OP and the difference between men and women.

I’ve had a couple near fatal street crashes on my motorcycle that left me really banged up and several badly broken bones that required surgery.

Every single orthopedic surgeon was an arrogant jerk and I have a bad habit of giving what I get from people and let’s just say that I got into several arguments. I tend to be a jerk when I encounter a jerk.

I went against my better judgement and had my shoulder reconstructed by a guy who was the most obtuse jerk I have ever encountered in my long life of motocross racing injuries and whatnot.

I was in constant pain and was so frustrated and scared by the prospect of losing my dexterity in my left hand due to the surgeon making my collarbone too long and mounting the plate to the front of the collarbone so it just shows a big black blob on an X-ray.

I tried to see another doctor, but they wouldn’t accept patients who were operated on by other surgeons. The 2 that would see me were also tools.

I started thinking it through and realized that I would be much better served by a female doctor after my experience with my female spine/pain management doctor.

She was excellent and she was proud and confident in her skills but had no signs of being arrogant. She was tough but fair. She knew that there are human beings attached to the injured body part. The other guy and most other males didn’t realize that basic fact IME.

I decided to do an experiment and use as many female doctors as I could as long as they were good doctors.

It was the best medical decision I have ever made. I’m not trying to sound sexist or like a stereotyper.

I just think that women have a different kind of ego that’s more conducive to getting to the root of the problem quickly and smoothly.

I would imagine doing face-to-face tech support to Apple’s standards is another thing that the female techs may be better at than males. Just my.02

 

[burntfrijoles]

I'm a long time Mac user. I've experienced excellent and poor customer service but the vast majority has been excellent. They're not perfect.
There's one dynamic that's hasn't been mentioned and it's the impact of Dr. Google. Some physicians discount some of what patients says because the patient has read about their symptoms, treatments on Google. I am sure the same is true for folks in other industries like computers and consumer electronics.
I don't know if females are more attentive and responsive in customer service or medical treatment. Subjectively I might agree with it because my last two calls to Apple Customer service were resolved by females. Who knows but I wouldn't be surprised if a study validated it.

 

[colchar]

"Did it ever occur to you"

Love the conversation starter,.. did that before I called Apple the first time. On this machine I'm only running Logic and Ozone 10 Advanced (plug in), pretty simple to do. Not a complex set up.

It wasn't meant the way it came across. I was watching the golf while posting and it got most of my attention.

 

[KokoTele]

One of the things that constantly frustrated me when I was young and worked retail was that managers frequently required us lowlings to follow the rules, though if a customer finally escalated an issue to the manager they would frequently work around those rules.

 

[imwjl]

I have a Mac Mini M1 that started acting odd a month ago. If I watched something streaming, YouTube, Prime, HBO, close out and come back an hour later, nothing will stream through a browser or an app until I restart.

Weird problem. I went through all the steps I know to fix it up to a clean install not using Time Machine, hard drive leveled, all app’s fresh, new OS,.. issue was still there. Spend an hour on the phone w AppleCare, no fix. “Bring it in the the Apple Store and have a genius look at it”. Ok, left the computer at the store, next day they call, all hardware tested good, but in conversation found they didn’t test correctly. Just ran a video and then ran another and all was “good”. Well, that’s not my issue. Won’t play video after sitting a few hours. They reinstalled the firmware and gave the unit back, I restored from backup. Same issue. Bring it back to the store for a “Lead” to look at it.

This is the fun part. Talked to the first guy, gonna call him nose ring guy. Explain the issue, he starts by telling me everything they couldn’t do. Like test it properly,.. under the circumstances that my issue happens. No, they have methods. We’re getting nowhere, I ask for his supervisor, get another guy. Same deal but not as irritating as nose ring guy. Telling me how they have to test and they can’t find an answer for my issue. Finally a woman comes out of the back room, she’s the manager of the repair department. For the fiftieth time I state the problem, when it occurs, etc. She says “I’ll test it just as you suggest, I’ll set it up right now and check it, call you back by 7:00 this evening.”

Which she did, and of course my issue didn’t happen. (We tested my local network and even connected the Mac to my iPhone hotspot when on the phone to AppleCare during my first attempt to resolve the problem, still happened). I asked if she would try it overnight and see what happens, she said of course.

I’ll know today what Apple will do when she calls back at 11:30. But she did float some possible options even if they can’t replicate the problem.

So now the observation: Every man I spoke with wanted to tell what they couldn’t do. All the women I spoke with had none of that attitude, it was “we can help”. The women were positive, the men wanted an argument or to prove their vast knowledge,..

I’m ready for the women to take over, I’m tired of all this macho BS.

From the scale I deal with this I can say the poor attitude can occur with women too, and some stores more than others. My assistant and I have 3 Apple stores that serve our work area.

The attitude you describe comes up in a lot of places and over time I've learned how to better deal with it and even grow from it. We have the region's flagship Apple Store near our HQ. I changed one guy with poor or macho attitude by commending him for it and surprising the heck out of him by asking what I could do to help him learn more.

For about 6 months the stores had a woman assigned to us usually working with bigger enterprises. For her I could cut the nonsense with a "What can I do to make your day go best?".

For your last sentence, where I work we have some departments with more women, far more in leadership, and one vital department now all millennial and gen z aged women. They all work better. When grudges are held it is usually over something that really was pretty bad.