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nirvana6875 t1_j9y7qjv wrote

Our cat knocked a glass of water over on my wife’s 4S back in the day. Turned it off right away and tried to dry it out. No luck. Took it in to the Apple Store, they said “no luck, the water sensors were triggered. But if you look at the charge port, see that tiny little crack that doesn’t effect anything? Manufacture defect, here’s a brand new phone, have yourselves a great day!”

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Anders13 t1_j9ytyhx wrote

I was a “genius” many years ago and if you were nice to me and the rest of the team and were under warranty, I’d swap it out under “single hairline crack” for free, even if there was some other type of accidental damage on the device. Those who were impatient and rude because they had to wait an hour for their walk-in appointment would pay for it :)

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Transposer t1_j9z1uvo wrote

You are a good person. I’m sure you made so many peoples’ days. It’s hard to work in retail and to deal with the public. Sadly, so many don’t deal with employees as real people.

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Anders13 t1_j9z75ae wrote

The best and funniest memory I have was a very sweet lady who had broken her phone but was out of warranty…I noticed the phone’s battery was below threshold during diagnostics so I swapped the whole thing under swollen battery replacement (I think it was $99 vs $300+) to replace the entire device.

About an hour later she comes back SOAKED from head to toe, including her hair (she was wearing a long dress) and tells me she had fallen into one of the mall’s water fountains lmao! At that point I swapped it again at no charge since it was within a 90 day warranty.

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danyaylol t1_j9zgr4q wrote

I don’t get why more employees are like you. They’re acting like their paycheck is determined by getting people to pay for repairs.

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Anders13 t1_j9zhca0 wrote

I know I know :( the amount of times I’d hear the other people I worked with get yelled at by angry customers was just absurd. I not once got yelled at in the 4 years I worked there. Like you said, it freaking Apple! Being nice to the customer and helping them as much as possible can only make your retail work/life easier.

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Whiffler t1_j9zayya wrote

Hahaha that’s amazing. Thank you for being a great human!

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Arkhemiel t1_j9zw4d5 wrote

Lisssstttteeeeen to meeeeee. Yesterday I had to tell a customer. You came in with a problem. I offered to fix your problem out of my own pocket (I’m not the boss) and you’re still not satisfied. What do you want? Customer: that’s a fair point. I’m done now. I’ll take that offer.

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sodiumbigolli t1_ja12a5w wrote

That is unheard of. A retail miracle lol. If you’re on that kind of a roll, could you please demand world peace? On the a chance it might happen?

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Arkhemiel t1_ja1caxe wrote

I live on a small island so it’s easy to become quite known you’re nice (or not nice) to people. I tell customers straight up. If you throw a tantrum I’m doing the bare minimum. If you’re understanding I attempt to get the earth to spin in the opposite direction for you. Over time with you being genuine you can get people (even the difficult ones) to see reason. Not everyone but most.

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ilikemrrogers t1_j9zh4kh wrote

Is that what happened to me?!

Went in for my ear speaker being so quiet I couldn’t hear a thing (old iPhone, but I have the same issue with my 11 pro max.)

I was with my two little girls, and had like an hour long wait. They were apologetic, because I had made an appointment. “No worries,” says I. I assumed I’d be waiting anyway. They got my number and I took my girls for a walk and to get some treats from the food court.

The text came in that I was ready to be seen. We go in, and they take my phone for a VERY long time. My girls were having fun playing around with the display iPads, and I was enjoying watching them. The guy helping me was so apologetic, but to be honest I was having a good day.

They eventually came out with a brand new phone for some kind of recall I never knew existed and couldn’t find online.

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GracefulHippopotamus t1_j9zszw7 wrote

Oh yeah, that definitely sounds like they wanted to give you the best they could :)

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ilikemrrogers t1_j9zt74s wrote

They had one of those Star Wars BB-8s (or whatever… the uniball with a “head) running around. It was pretty fun to watch.

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Natural_Nature_Shots t1_ja27yui wrote

That’s why I had two products upgraded. Thank you peeps that helped me with my iPod touch and my iPhone 3GS. I am always patient when it comes to that stuff no point in yelling and getting mad. It doesn’t solve it faster

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navjot94 t1_j9yu4x7 wrote

Yeah this case along with OP’s sounds like it may have been a generous store employee that was able to identify a minor defect and get you a good deal for it.

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Herves7 t1_j9yptod wrote

Lol I went with my apple watch 82% battery health. I asked to pay to replace the battery but got rejected because it has to be under 80%. 2 weeks later its under 80% but I'm in a foreign country which I told them was the reason I came in person as apple support suggested

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azewonder t1_j9zjcry wrote

Battery does not have to be under 80% for them to replace it (unless it’s warrantied under apple care). I just had my 13 mini battery replaced at 89% because I didn’t want to wait and pay more. Of course he tried to talk me out of it, but I got it done.

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Herves7 t1_j9zn5iv wrote

Warranty was out of the question. I was willing to pay as well. I even asked him to ask a manager because it didn't make sense to me especially if I'm paying.

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fiendishfork t1_ja066z9 wrote

Yeah this happened to me as well, with both Watch and phone, both having really bad battery issues but battery health stuck just over 80% and no amount of persuading could get them to replace the battery because it was not clearing whatever threshold their diagnostics were showing them.

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con247 t1_ja07ige wrote

I hate how difficult they make it to actually pay to get it replaced. They ask you 10000 questions and fight against it. I don’t need 15 minutes of Q&A and them typing stuff into the iPad. I know what I want. Take my phone and money and let me leave. It should be a 2 minute interaction, not 15-20.

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CactusBoyScout t1_j9zb9ym wrote

I watched a Genius Bar employee just straight up give a dude something once.

This guy brought in his MacBook that was having issues and the Genius Bar employee hooked up a wired Apple keyboard to run some diagnostics. The guy was like “Oh man I’ve been meaning to get one of those. They look really nice.”

And the employee just goes “I think you came in with it. 🤫” The guy seemed confused so he just repeated “I think you came in with it. 😉” And the guy put it in his bag after they were done.

An ex of mine got a brand new MacBook after hers required like 4 separate repairs for manufacturer issues. That seemed more reasonable but it was still at least a year out of warranty so I was impressed.

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AngryFace4 t1_j9yvle6 wrote

Back in the 4s day apple was a lot more generous with this policy. They’re still way better than most companies, but compared to Jobs apple not close.

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ThatOldGuyWhoDrinks t1_ja0e441 wrote

i had gotten a launch iPhoneX - 3 days later i'd left it on the roof of my car and it slid off and got run over. it was in a hard case so the bits were there but it was destroyed.

I made a genius bar appointment for that day and took the credit card to pay the OOW fee ($1000 AU) straight away as my wife was heavily preggers (was due in 3 weeks) and i could not be without a phone.

I go in and they gave me a brand new iPhone X with double the memory i had as thats all they had for no charge telling me to use the money for the baby.

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BlackMailerWagen t1_ja203jg wrote

When I was 13 I dropped my iPhone 7 at the gym and these colored bars came onto my screen. My mom and I went to apple and said it suddenly started acting like that in the morning, and they fixed it under the warranty.

Fast forward to 2020, my mom takes her 6S in for a battery replacement, they break it, and give her a brand new phone.

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horse_and_buggy t1_ja01xa3 wrote

Genius bar has changed. The actual level of "genius" these retail store associates has greatly decreased, and they don't really go above and beyond like they used to with support and free replacements during the early iPhone days.

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nt-gud-at-werds t1_ja0ufl1 wrote

I think back when it was I phone 3 4 5 era they used Apple Store as a big selling point they just swapped out phones for new, no drama. This was the beginning, and for a lot of people it was there first experience with apple products. They wanted to make a great impression. It’s not like that anymore but it’s still a very good experience going to the Apple Store and I still get bonus every now and then.

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simplequark t1_ja0eoyf wrote

That's cool and pretty much how my experiences with Apple's online support staff went, too.

Our local Apple Store staff, though, have apparently been trained to try and deflect as many customer claims as possible. So I, in turn, try to avoid dealing with them as much as possible.

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