Apple Century City — Local services in Los Angeles

Okay so this review is mostly for the sake of calling out L (not sure his full name), because he is the best!! He gets 5 STARS, but I'm rating this store a 4, just for the store experience overall.

My appt was on 9/16/18, and I didn't have to wait too long to check-in at the front door. Sometimes this location DOES get super crowded, especially since the Apple store moved within the mall to a bigger space, and also because this mall has become more & more fancy with new shops opening, etc so there's way more people about. Definitely more bougie than it used to be.

Anyway L. was the one helping me troubleshoot my laptop. He was super patient, and actually listened to my concerns / description of what was happening, and my thoughts on what the cause could be. I feel like some genius bar employees get impatient bc they think they're smarter than the customer / know everything, so they act condescending, but L wasnt like that at all! (I mean I know not all customers are tech-savvy, but I consider myself to be very much so, and for once I didn't feel like I was being cut off).

If the Apple store sees this, PLEASE RECOGNIZE THIS MAN!!! I can happily provide more details about the service I received.

OKAY so here are tips about the store in general, this should help make your experience at this location less stressful!!

The line to speak to a check-in person isn't too long usually (see above) If you're just coming to buy something quickly & you know exactly what you want, just tell the front door people & they will tell you who to see, OR you can usually tell where the cashier is (usually off to the side) and there will be a short line of people waiting there to be rung-up... i think there is usually only 1 or 2 cashiers working in the store at a time. You should pre-book an appointment for repairs (online or by phone), because the walk-ins wait is usually quite long... sometimes 1 hour, sometimes 3 hours, it just depends, this location gets tons of customers. The nice thing is, you're in a mall, so i NEVER have issues killing time... there's shopping, food, movies, etc, and they just text you when they're ready :) If you do wanna try a walk-in, make sure you come early enough in the day, not too close to closing, because for certain things like laptops / larger items that require Genius Bar people, they sometimes wont even take your name down (e.g. i once came in at 6pm & they close at 9, but they still wouldnt take me) I have come here to charge my phone before, because it was at 1% and i had to call an uber home... Nobody bothered me, so i feel like it's fine?? Probably because it's always so crowded. I just waited at one of the iPads & explored the games on there. I learned how to "code" in the time i was charging my phone through one of their new kids games!! it was actually quite...

So, the store finally re-opened and out of nowhere my Macbook screen broke for the second time (I did NOTHING to it). I took it to the store immediately because I have online college classes, and a stay-at-home job, so I really needed it to be fixed ASAP. They said it’ll take 5 days to fix it. I could also just have it delivered to my home, which is much more convenient since I don’t have a car and have to walk to the store.

Unfortunately, they didn’t accept apple pay for that particular purchase (even though its freaking apple???), and I didn’t have a physical card (but I have the info saved on my phone), so the only option is to leave it there to get it fixed in-store and pay when u pick it up. 5 days later, I came there to pick it up that morning, and it wasn’t fixed. The guy told me the part arrived yesterday and they should fix it today before they close. They didn’t. Next morning I get a call from them saying they’re closing the stores again for safety reason so they have to send it to a place to fix it and it’ll arrive in the mail. They asked for my card info so they can send it.

My question is: WHY DIDN’T YOU DO THAT IN THE FIRST PLACE??? WHY DIDN’T THE GUY JUST USE MY CARD INFO TO SEND IT TO THE PLACE TO GET IT FIXED??? WHY DID HE SAY MY ONLY SOLUTION TO DROP IT OFF THERE, WHEN IT WASN’T??? They said it’ll take until Tuesday, but I’ve ordered stuff from apple online and it ALWAYS ARRIVES LATE!!! I’m gonna be out of town to visit family on Thursday, so by the time it’ll probably arrive, it’ll be sitting there for days, WAITING TO GET STOLEN (I have no other address to send it to). I JUST STARTED COLLEGE!!!!! AND A NEW ONLINE JOB!!! And for two whole weeks (plus when I’m out of town) I don’t have a computer to work on anything, just my phone, and I can’t do some of the things, that I need to do, on my phone (like have two tabs opened at the same time side-by-side).

Why the hell does a Macbook air screen crack so easily???? Last time it cracked was because of a freaking sunflower seed!! And you guys don’t even offer screen protectors for them (I just bought some off-brand on amazon bc I’m NOT dealing with this stuff again). Also, when I got an appointment (luckily there was an opening), I had to wait an extra half hour and people who came later than me got called in before me (assuming their appointment was before mine, they shouldn’t even get a person if they arrive late!!). Apple is a billion dollar company, you should be more prepared for the amount of customers you’re gonna get. I should have my laptop by now but I’m not gonna get it back for another week, and possibly longer if it arrives...

I am very disappointed with the service attitude at this Apple Store. Next time I will purchase online instead—at least online customer service is much better. I had ordered online, but since I was worried I might not be home to receive the delivery, I chose in-store pickup at this location. When I went to pick up my order, the staff member at the pickup counter—a man with a lot of hair on his upper lip—asked me for my order number. I said I didn’t remember it, and that the email with the order number had already been deleted. I asked if I could just give my name. He said no. So I had to log into the website, enter my account and password, and then provide him with the order number. I can accept that, but I really doubt that the system cannot look up an order by name. What made it worse was his behavior—whether because of nervousness or something else, he kept knocking his knuckles against the desk while talking. It was very unprofessional and made customers feel anxious. He said he would go get my order, but then another person suddenly came out instead. No greeting, no explanation, just another staff member replacing him. Honestly, this was ridiculous. The second person then asked for my name again, and this time he was able to find my order in the system immediately. So why did the first employee claim it couldn’t be found? Do they really think customers are fools? If they truly need the order number for security reasons, they could simply explain politely and ask me to provide it. I would have understood. But instead, the first employee clearly could have found my order by name, yet said he couldn’t. That is extremely disrespectful. I have always been very satisfied with Apple’s customer service, but now it seems to be deteriorating, just like the products. They verified some of my personal information, handed me the keyboard and computer, and I left. But when I got home, I realized—they never confirmed the actual details of my computer with me. My machine is a customized MacBook Pro with the nano-texture display. They never checked with me whether the screen was indeed nano-texture, whether the color was Midnight, whether the keyboard was black—nothing at all. They just did their own verification internally. But mistakes can happen during shipping—what if they gave me the wrong configuration? It’s not only about preventing mistakes. When a customer spends over $2,000 on a computer, there should also be a sense of care and ceremony in the pickup experience. Otherwise, what’s the point of having staff there at all? Apple is really disappointing in...