Apple West Town Mall — Local services in Knoxville

My phone screen needed to be replaced. I took it into the Apple store located in West Town Mall in Knoxville, Tn. I drove over an hour to get there because it is the nearest store to my location. I get there and was told by an employee that my phone would be ready for pickup in 1 hour. A hour and a half later I return to the store to pick up my phone. The greeter at the door notified me that it wasn't ready yet. She couldn't tell me why because she couldn't hear anyone over her radio. She did, however, inform me that it would be ready in about 15 more minutes. 15 minutes pass and another employee approaches me to see what I was there for. I filled her in on the issue and she said she would go to the back to check on my phone for me. I watch her go to the back and a few minutes later come back out. She never returned to inform me on the status of my phone. 20 minutes later another employee comes to check on me and I also inform her on the situation as well as tell her its been over 2 hours that I've waited now. She goes to the back and comes out to tell me that they are finishing up on it now and it will be no more than 10 minutes before it's finished. Another 10-15 minutes passes and yet another employee comes to me to see what I needed. I filled him in on the story and he also went to check on the phone. He came back and said the phone had been doing a software update and that is what has taken so long. (I'm not stupid and have used apple products long enough to know it does not take over an hour for a software update to run.) He also informs me that it will be no longer than 10 minutes before my phone is ready. 15 minutes later an employee is finally walking towards me with what I assumed was my phone. I was wrong. He informs me that my phone wouldn't calibrate after the screen replacement (another new story) and they would just have to replace me phone. Now at this point I have waited for almost three hours for a three minute fix. As I begin to set up the phone on my own it asks for a code for the two step verification process. The employee said it was sending the code to my MacBook and I would need to take the new phone home, not functioning, and set it up on my own and contact them via phone with any issues. Unsurprisingly, when I get home and try to set the phone up it is NOT sending the code to my laptop but rather to a phone number I no longer have access to. At this point it's nearing midnight so I give up to try again in the morning. Now I have contacted an advisor via a phone call where she informs me that I will have to go through the reset process and it will take 24 hours or longer to get everything reset so that I can attempt to set the phone up again. However, I didn't believe that this was the only possible solution. After screwing with options on my Mac I finally figured out on my own how to set up the new phone through my Mac. By going into the settings and adding a verified phone number that I could send the verification code to. This has easily been the worst experience i've had with Apple. All I needed was a screen replaced and what I got was a not so genius "Genius Bar".

Gave one star because you...

Forewarning....do not expect great service when visiting this Apple Store. Unfortunately this is the only Apple Store near me. This is the first time that I have ever needed to go in to the store to need a specialists help. We simply needed a battery change due to the issues accompanied with the iPhone 6. I made an appointment on Saturday for the first available date of Tuesday at 6:15pm. I arrived on time and signed in with the representative at the front of the store by giving him my name. He told us to head to the back of the store and someone would be with us shortly. My mom, newborn, and I then waited 30 minutes in the back of the store never moving from our spot at a table. We then watched as multiple people who came in after us were attended to. We began to get frustrated . So, I went to the representative who signed us in. I asked him what their procedure was for appointment holders. He then asked for the name we signed in with. I gave him the name and he told me that a specialist had tried to find us and could not so they skipped over us. Not once did anyone come by the "waiting area" in the back of the store where we were asked to wait to yell out, ask, or see if we were there. He told us he had signed us in as having on a "tan cardigan". Neither my mom, my newborn, or myself had on a "tan cardigan". My mom and I both had on floral colorful tops and my newborn was unable to be seen since she was in her carseat in the stroller but she was wearing a mint polkadot sleep and play. Then, the representative told me that we would have to wait for another specialist. So now, we have waited over 30 minutes for an appointment that was made 3 days prior and watched as multiple people were attended to. I then watched as the representative spoke to who I believe was the store manager about the situation. She then glanced and glared at us multiple times and even proceed to point us out to another colleague. Never once came over to apologize for the mishap and completely avoided us for the remainder of our time in the store. We then waited another 15 minutes before a specialist came to us. He then confirmed that we were there for a battery exchange. We concurred and he stated that it would take an hour and a half before they would be able to replace the battery. So we have now spent 45 minutes (being generous) waiting to be told that we are going to have to wait an additional hour and a half before we would be finished. However, after explaining to him our experience in the store thus far. He was able to get our battery replaced in 30 minutes. In my opinion, this level of service is outrageous and unacceptable for any place of business. I will be contacting the regional manager on this matter as well. I will also do everything I can to avoid this store...

I have been to numerous apple stores across US. This store has taken the cake for being the worst by far. 3 Trips in 2 weeks for 2 iPhones. Case 1, went to store for getting my iPhone battery replaced (out of warranty). Genius did some dumb diagnostic testing on my phone and said your battery is at 94% and don't need to be replaced. Huh...I'm a Ph.D. battery scientist who work making and testing batteries for a living. I can guarantee, apple's diagnostic is a piece of lies. My phone battery was at 450 cycles and there is no li-ion battery in the world that can be at 94% at 450 cycles. Plus my battery was discharging in groups of 5-10% which is a clear indication that battery has gone kaput. I insisted on getting the battery replaced and after some convincing they did the replacement and now my phone is working great. Case 2, bought a brand new iPhone 13 mini and it had tons of sound issues. Static and sound breaking up. Went to store for a replacement under warranty and genius (so called genius) rudely said nope not happening. She ran the same diagnostics and said there is no issue. Rude manager and rude genius said 2 options..., wipe it and test again and if the problem persists we will repair the phone (not replace) and if it still persists then we will replace. Called apple support and they checked with store and repeated the same resolution. Wiping the phone didn't work as the issue remained. They took 2-3 hours to repair some boards inside on my brand new phone. We checked and problem was still there. We went to store the next day and a new manager was there who was more professional and put another genius to work. They ran diagnostic again and lo and behold there was a faulty network board. They immediately replaced the phone but were still defending the other genius and how apple is moving over to repairing faulty devices instead of replacing them. My question to them is why the results are different during same diagnostic tests? why the first genius was so rude and ignorant to customer issue and think that diagnostic test is the word of god. I know apple has developed diagnostic test as a face saving feature where they try to shut out the customer who actually is testing the device is real world and there is no diagnostic test that replicates what customer experiences in real world. This whole experience has made me think if I will ever buy another apple product again? Anyways, rant apart, I will give this apple store and their staff a big F on their...