Apple Smith Haven — Attraction in Town of Smithtown

This place has the worst customer service I've ever experienced of any retail store anywhere. I'm not a person who likes putting negative reviews but this merits it. I came in cause I upgraded my system as the computer prompts you to and it never turn on. It would show a folder with a question mark. The first time I went there, they said I had to wait over an hour so I opted for making an appointment which was 3 days later. I made the appointment which was smacked in the middle of the day and unfortunately didn't get there in time. I tried calling the store no luck, called customer service they couldn't even get in touch with the store. I went the next day as a walk in and they said I had to wait 2 hours. On this day I wasn't feeling good since I acquired the flu. I mentioned to everyone I spoke to, even the manager they showed no concern what so ever. One lady even said that their system was so organized that is why I had to wait. I wouldn't call waiting 2 hours organized. There was another lady who had an appointment piss off cause she was waiting 45 mins, so much for this apple organization system. Not sure what world they are living in but in this world you have to care of your customer or eventually you will loose them all. When I finally spoke to manager he didn't have anything different to add I expressed my feelings about their system and he said he didn't have enough "Tecs " I told him that he should hire more Tecs then. They have too many people walking around with their gadgets making it believe like they know what they are doing and non of them know how to even run a freaking simple computer diagnostic, take a computer in right away and call you when it's fixed and save the people the headache of waiting. This is what they used to do. Why change to this so called "organized" way of doing things. If they continue with this way of doing things they should rename it instead of customer service called "cattle management" or "we don't care about you coordination". They are so nice to sell you but not nice to take cake of your issues. Not good when they want 3k for a computer that may or may not work in 6 months when you do an upgrade. So why bother with the extra apple care insurance. The biggest problem is that now their computers are seal and you can only bring it to them otherwise the warranty is void. Not a good business model apple. Terrible for a business when your customer care is that horrific, it doesn't even take a genius to know that. At the end of 2 hours they sent a guy who was running a diagnosis of the system but was so busy talking to other co-workers that couldn't even press a simple key to advance the diagnosis. I asked him how long it would take cause at this point my flu got the best of me and I was going to vomit all over their floor. He said he needed a tec cause he wasn't a tec. I was so sick I pull all the cables from my computer and left. Apple instead of having art classes you should have more tec classes for employees so they know how to take care of problems not just look like a genius. I think the only genius move is to not buy an apple product in the future. I have been an apple client for over 10 years with a desktop, 2 laptops, an iPad and an iPhone. I am an editor and I need my computer for work. Shame on apple as I am gonna start looking for other alternatives. Steve Jobs has to be turning on his grave right now for what apple is doing to its customers. So if your sales go down it may not be because you didn't come out with a new gadget to compete with the other guy but because you forgot about the people who matter most, your customer. Loyalty and service tigers purchase not a new gadget or remodeled store with a million of uncomfortable seating for what might be your longest wait... An apple rep called me as I filled out a very upset survey and they tried to rectify or remediate the situation. They gave me an appointment and this time around it was a totally different experience. I didn't have to wait as long and they fixed...

Walked into the Apple Store, around 2:45 on Monday 8/14. A pretty busy store and by the looks of it all Apple employees looked busy with helping customers or getting items for people. I walked around for about 15 minutes to figure out what I wanted. A new Apple Watch band for a Series 7 and a storage device/back up. So I found an employee and asked where I can get and purchase the items. She said “did you sign in?” I said “No, where do you sign in?” She said “in the center.” Pretty vague if you ask me. Although I own multiple Apple products, I’ve never been to the store before. All new to me. So I asked her to clarify. She said “in the center… sign in” as she walked away as if the back of the store was on fire. So I looked around and sure enough, there is now a long line extending from inside the store to outside the big entry doors of the store. So I took my 6 year old and we walked to the back of the line 10 people deep. 15 minutes later I get to the front, the young man asks me how I’m doing and what am I looking for. I told him, a watch band and I’m looking for other things too. He pointed to the watch bands and said “they are over there” “just pick out the one you want and someone will help you out.” I already knew what I wanted but I went over to the watch bands and looked at them again and played with them a bit. 15 minutes later, no one has helped me. So I asked another employee walking past me “how can I get this watch band? “No one is helping me.”She said “you have to sign in” as she walked away hurriedly to help the other employee put out the fire in the back of the store. I then hear other employees calling out names, looking for shoppers. Bob? Mary? However, when I signed in, the guy never asked me for my name…! I was just told go to the watch bands and someone would be there to help me. So I went back to the young man and interrupted him and said “you never took my name and I’ve been standing there for 15 minutes waiting for help… how does anyone know I need help if you never took my name?” After a few agitated words back and forth he then said that he would help me even though the line now looked to have 20 or more people on it. He asked “which watch band do you want?” I told him the one I wanted was the “45 mm brown leather” and he said “we don’t have those in the store but I can help you order it online.”

Are you kidding me?

If either of the previous 2 firefighting employees would have simply asked me what I was looking for, or explained a little more to me, especially since this was clearly an unfamiliar “in the store” experience, I wouldn’t have wasted over an hour in this awful place just to hear “oh, we don’t have those…”

Yep, with all that’s going on in the world, this is minimally important but it’s a symptom of the disease of today’s society. No one goes the extra step let alone the extra mile to figure something out. Just a bunch of AI robots creating a completely unpleasant experience.

I have 2 MacBook Pro’s, multiple accessories, 3 iPad's, I’ve had 4 iPhones and the same goes for my wife, she’s had at least 4 iPhones and multiple MacBook Air’s, several sets of AirPods, 4 Apple Watch’s and all kinds of accessories. Great products. Terrible in store experience.

My advice; avoid this place...

The folks working in the store were professional, knowledgeable and polite, HOWEVER, it blows my mind that you can tell a customer to come back in a week because your store is too busy, and still have a successful business. To have that many people in a store all needing technical assistance ... wow. You walk into a large room full of tables where people are just meandering and talking like it's a coffee shop. The staff are wearing non-descript dark blue shirts with a small Apple logo on it but at first you can't tell who's a customer and who's an employee. There's no line. There's no identifiable person to speak with so you have to interrupt a conversation to ask what the procedure is for speaking to someone. When I did find the person I was told they were booked up until next week. This is not Black Friday or Christmas or even the weekend. When I commented on how ridiculous this is the person suggested I come back later just before the store closes, which I did. When I arrived the second time I was relieved to see a group of 5 employees standing there talking but as I approached 4 of them scattered. Again, I was told I'd have to come back in a week. "You just had 4 employees standing here with nothing to do." Seeing my visible frustration the floor supervisor said she would work with me and apologized for the delay. She was very disarming and professional and I applaud her. During the process of seeing why my phone had 0 power they needed my apple id and password which I provided and was needed to turn off the security features. Then I'm told their system is down, they can't verify the serial number and I need to provide a receipt ... from 3 years ago and a different store. Ok, I understand people come in with stolen phones but this is another ridiculous expectation. Now I can see why the store is packed with people needing help. Icing on the cake... try calling the store to get an update on the repair. That phone must have rung for a few minutes but no one ever picked up. Apple, you may make a decent product and your people are polite but your customer service model after the purchase sucks. Quit trying to be hip and cool and work on making sure frustrated customers walk out happy customers by making the process...