Spectrum Store — Local services in Honolulu

I tend to limit my review posting practices specifically to two situations:

(1) When a business or employee treats me so poorly that I would give them a 0-star rating, if I could.

OR

(2) When a business or employee goes above and beyond or treats me with extraordinary kindness and deserves to be recognized for that.

I am happy to report that today's review for the Spectrum store on School Street in Hawaii is a glowing review for a SUPERSTAR employee at this location named MARISSA.

A little background first:

I have always been very close to my mother but 20-years ago I moved from my home state of Arizona to California and then moved again in 2024 from California to Hawaii about the same time as my mother moved the opposite direction to Florida. These moves saw us essentially on opposite sides of the Earth and with a 6 hour time difference between. Throwing both of our work schedules in the mix, it has been hard to keep in touch with my mother and when we are able to catchup it's been unusually brief, so I've been missing her even more than usual.

After living here for a few months, I met a woman named Julie, who is a relatively spunky 60-something woman of about my mother's age. As we became close, she eventually shared with me that one of the reasons she loved our friendship was because I reminded her of her son who had sadly passed away from a drug overdose 5-10 years ago in his mid-twenties and that she thinks about and misses him every single day.

Over time, it became evident that we were helping eachother to fill voids in eachother's lives in a really sweet way, so when Christmas time came around I vowed to buy her the very first iPhone she has ever owned. This is the type of woman that gives of everything she has, from her money to her time and everything between, to the point that she struggles to survive in her own life because she would rather make sure everyone around her was taken care of first. When I told her that I would like to get her an iPhone for Christmas, she was blown away that somebody would be doing something like this for her and was super excited to get her very first Apple product.

It took us several weeks to find a date/time that we could go to the Spectrum store together and when the day finally came it was nearly two months later and Christmas had come and gone... I'm sure she wondered if perhaps I may not follow through on my promise. However, of course I couldnt do that to her.

When the day finally came, unfortunately I wasnt able to pick her up from her place until 7:35 PM and Spectrum closes at 8:00 PM, so we arrrived 5-10 minutes before they were scheduled to close and knew they wouldnt be thrilled about coming in so late. Having to do a complete swap from an Android to an iPhone, process the uprade/credit card/sim swap/transfer data to the new device in 5-10 minutes is impossible so I was quite worried that when we walked in we would encounter a grumpy employee that may simply refuse to perform the upgrade and tell us to come back another day with more time before closing.

HOWEVER.......

..... When we walked into that store, there were two employees. A male and a female. They both looked at me at about the same moment; however, the look I got from the guy on the left was essentially "you've got to be kidding me, we close in like 5 minutes" while the superstar, MARISSA, gave me the complete opposite look. She lit up with a nice, beautiful smile, told us to sign in and said she would be with us in just a few minutes (she had a customer at the moment). She graciously performed the phone upgrade flawlessly and even transferred over the critical data like contacts and photos to the iPhone on my friend's behalf and even stayed nearly 45 minutes past closing time with not a single complaint or even the slightest bit of attitude. She was sweet, kind and gracious beginning to end. What a great example she would be as a store manager or assistant manager someday. Marissa, couldn't have done it without you that night, will appreciate you forever. Thank you so...

Arrived at 12:15 for a 12:20 appointment on 8/3/22 for a quick equipment exchange. Waited until 12:50 before I had to go to make another meeting across town, and scheduled another appointment at Spectrum for 3:40. Received a text at 12:58 that it was finally my turn. Came back at 3:15 and checked in for my 3:40 appointment. The list inside showed my name at #3 with two people ahead of me. I waited outside for the text for my turn, and kept watching my position on the list. There was no change until 3:50 when my name disappeared briefly, and then went back to #3. I got the text saying it was my turn, which was odd since I was still #3. I went inside and asked a person at the counter who wasn’t working with anyone where I should go, think his name was Kawika. He was really rude and said “well that guy called your name and since you didn’t respond he called someone else”. I said I’d been waiting outside for the text, and came in when I got it, and he said “if you’d been waiting inside we would have called you”. I’m not sure if he has forgotten how to count, but I wouldn’t expect to be the next person called if I’m #3 in the queue, and it’s a bit surprising that they won’t help people who aren’t waiting inside the store. There’s no point in sending a text when your turn is up if you have to wait in the store anyway. Finally, it didn’t look like Kawika was with a customer (though in his defense I didn’t ask). However, if he wasn’t working with anyone, and customers with appointments have been waiting for 40 minutes, it might be good to start doing his job. There’s no point in making an appointment if the store won’t honour appointment times. Adding the rude staff, I won’t be returning to...

I'm not entirely sold on this location when it comes to speed. I stopped by this weekend to help my dad return old boxes and remotes, and what should have been a quick errand turned into a two-hour saga. Yes, two hours just for that.

Weekdays might actually be the better time to visit. Even folks with set appointments were waiting a while, so clearly, the timing here is not ideal.

That said, the customer service was fantastic and quick once I was finally helped. I don't remember the name of the guy who assisted me, but he was a hustler--working hard to move the line and even apologized for my poor phone experience with someone on the mainland. Five stars for him alone!

I watched one lady hang around for 40 minutes just to get a remote... and she had an appointment! Not here to bash the team, but maybe their corporate office needs to know they're understaffed for the weekend?

On the bright side, the air conditioning was great, but let's be honest--there are better ways to spend a couple of hours than sitting in a waiting area wishing for...