Apple Eastwood Towne Center — Local services in Lansing Charter Township

I was in need of a new phone, and as a long time iPhone user, the release of the new 15 sounded great to me. I skipped the pre-order to just order for in store pick-up, and hoped to get lucky enough to find the phone I wanted in stock somewhere nearby. Fortunately, this Apple store had one available the other night, and I was able to snag it for pickup. It was a little bit of a drive, but I was in pretty desperate need of a new phone, so my boyfriend and I decided to make a date out of it and plan to spend the day in the area anyways. We got to the Apple store around 11:30-12:00, and we were quickly helped by two associates. One of them was a shorter girl who was supposed to be assessing my old phone for a trade-in. To my surprise, and for no given reason, this associate was very passive aggressive towards me and made several rude remarks when I told her that I didn’t want to upgrade to Applecare+, and that I wasn’t in need of location services on my phone. My boyfriend and I laughed this off, assuming the best and hoping that we had just interpreted these remarks incorrectly. We continued on, now being sent to a separate area of the store, where a different employee, named Jason, helped us. Jason was helpful throughout the process of backing up my icloud data, but he seemed to be overall irritated and unhappy when helping us and the other customers around us. My boyfriend and I were told that the icloud transfer would take awhile, so after waiting for well over an hour, we finally decided to ask if we were okay to go outside and shop at the mall, and they could call us when the phone was ready. The employees seemed reluctant about this, insisting that we were aware that they’d need to be able to reach us. At this point, everything was starting to feel like a joke. Why would I not come back to the store if my phone and belongings were still there? It came off as condescending, and was poor customer service. My boyfriend and I spent the next five hours shopping and eating dinner within the shopping center. Not once did the Apple store call us, so finally, we decided to go back to the store and ask about it. At this point, the store was closing in an hour and my phone still wasn’t ready. When we entered the building, the rude female employee from earlier in the day asked us why we were back, saying, “Why are you guys back? You’re supposed to go away and stay away for a long time!” To this, my boyfriend and I exchanged Glances. We ignored the remarks, and were quickly helped by a male employee, who ended up being the only worker we interacted with the entire day who didn’t seem angry at us for simply being there. At this point, it was 5:35 p.m. and the store was closing at 6:00. The worker helping us explained that the initial transfer was finally done, but getting my data onto the new phone would take another 30-40 minutes. He said we should go ahead and start the process there in the store, and hope for it to be done before they closed. My boyfriend and I sat in the store for an hour waiting for it to finish, and at 6:30, we were rudely asked to leave because the workers needed to go home. We never had a problem with leaving at all, and we would have left before 6 if they hadn’t encouraged us to stay and wait. The last hours we spent in this store ended up being a complete waste of time, because since we had to leave, the transferring process had to be restarted completely by ME when I arrived home. If I had known I would’ve been able to do this by myself at home, I would have left hours beforehand. We also had long drive, causing us to arrive home late at night, and I had no phone to contact my family and let them know that I was safe because my old phone was erased by Apple, and the new one had to go through a three hour transferring process on my home wifi. The entire situation was a disaster, and my boyfriend and I had an overall terrible experience. The unfriendly, passive aggressive, and downright arrogant employees at this store really wasted our time, I do not recommend it and I will not...

apple has a reputation of above and beyond customer service and positive attitudes — something sorely absent from this location. this is the worst apple store i have ever dealt with (and i’ve been to plenty across multiple states).

every time i enter this store, i’m treated as if i’m a burden or impeding socialization between the staff. there’s only one staff member that has ever been helpful out of the nearly half a dozen i’ve encountered personally. unfortunately, since she’s the only person who is friendly, knowledgeable and seems to be there to work she’s usually busy assisting other customers:

on two separate occasions staff members have tried to give me the run around about doing a warranty exchange. the first was for my magsafe wallet that came apart less than six months after purchase. i had the receipt but i was told if i didn’t have the original box i couldn’t do a warranty exchange (false). the second time i was exchanging a usb-c cable (2m) that was defective after only a month of use. i had the original packing this time to avoid any argument from the staff. the person assisting me grabbed a usb-c cable and handed it to me. when i got home i noticed there was some discoloration on it but didn’t think much of it. when i went to actually use it, i noticed instead of being wrapped as it would when it’s brand new from the package it was partially tangled. my cable i purchased less than a month ago was replaced with a used cable with visible wear.

i’ve also been given the wrong information many times from people assisting me at this store. a few examples are being told i only needed a 30w charger for my Macbook pro, a staff member telling me only the iPad pro charges with usb-c (this was after both the Air and Mini switched from lightning), being told I couldn’t reuse my SIM after a warranty exchange (as an excuse for why they lost or tossed it). i luckily do my research so for the most part i know when i’m being misled but many others do not which i am sure is a frustrating situation when they trust the staff to be knowledgeable.

the worst example i have of bad customer service at this store is me asking about a product i wanted to purchase that i had seen online and the staff member assisting me shrugged and told me he didn’t know what it was before walking away from me. i located it myself and returned to where he was hiding in the corner of the store chatting with another staff member. he rolled his eyes and sighed when i approached him so at that point, i was no longer interested in purchasing anything from that store. i put it back and left.

i love apple as a company but if there was any other option for apple stores reasonably close, i’d go there instead. in fact, i’d probably drive an hour just to not deal with the staff at this store. they’re that bad.

note: the quality of the products is not my reasoning for the low rating but the quality of service i received — sometimes stuff is defective. i understand that and since i work customer service myself, i’m...

Horrible, and extremely unknowledgeable tech staff, save yourself the multiple hour wait and bring your devices to a real electronic tech. If I was able to rate this store zero stars I absolutely would. I brought my macbook pro into this Eastwood Towne Center location for problems with my keyboard acting as if the command button was stuck down. It wasnt, after waiting SEVEN hours, I clearly demonstrated to the staff at the Genius Bar with my on-screen keyboard view that indeed all the buttons responded to being pressed and also made a noise accordingly, even the command key. It was clear to me, and I had clearly demonstrated to the male working, that there was no issue with my hardware, yet he insisted the only way to rid the problem was to completely replace my entire bottom case. Having a working brain and a slight amount of computer knowledge was enough for me to know that this was not the solution, so I proceeded to ask the male working to have the rest of the Genius Staff diagnose it. He quickly returned with their only solution to the problem, replace the bottom case. In fact, he even told me it may be ideal to look into options of purchasing a new replacement computer. You can see straight through the minds of this staff, they are highly unknowledgeable and lack the effort to truly solve your issues. After days of not being able to operate my macbook I explained the issue to a friend of mine who worked on our university's IT staff, he quickly fixed my device with a single keystroke! Bottom line is that as a representation of a high quality electronic production company, this apple care store is a shame. They are a disgrace to Apple products and lack the capability to stand behind them. I will make it a point to criticize this store and spread the word as much as possible to fellow colleagues and students. Take your devices to people who actually knows the functionality of these products and is willing to help resolve your issues, even if it means taking the extra time to drive out of town or to a new store that may seem unfamiliar. It is a far wiser solution than waiting seven hours to speak to a "Genius Bar Tech Support" that in reality knows no more...