I had a problem with my Apple Watch. Previously, I had made a Genius Bar appointment to get it fixed, but since I had not upgraded my phone to a higher version of iOS, they were not able to address the issue. I had other reasons for not upgrading the phone to iOS at that time. Several months later, and with the iPhone iOS completed, I attempted to get the watch working. Rebooting it didn’t work, and so the next “fix” was to un-pair the watch from the phone and re-pair it. Un-pairing it worked like a champ; re-pairing, not so much.
So I got online and accessed the vaunted Apple customer care. From my previous experience with Apple, I had high expectations that I would get my problem resolved. Within a few minutes, I was chatting with Kimberly. We went back and forth, trying the various options for getting my watch to “play well with others,” but to no avail. So she told me my only choices were to either send the watch to Apple for repair or take it to an Apple Store. Since I live almost four hours from an Apple Store, I wanted to know if I could just drop the watch off, or if I would have to make a Genius Bar appointment. Kimberly assured me that I could just drop it off. Here is the actual transcript of our chat:
Kimberly
I understand. It definitely sounds like that watch has some internal issues that we need to get serviced. For Apple Watch we have two options for service. The first option would be to mail the watch into our Repair Center for service. The second option would be to visit an Apple Store to have the watch serviced.
David
OK. I had a previous genius bar appointment with similar problems with the watch several months back and it was after that I didn’t use the watch for a period. Is there any way you can look at that genius bar appointment and see whether another genius bar appointment is warranted? There is not an apple store for about 225 miles from where I live
David
Or can i just drop off the watch at the apple store for repair without making a genius bar appointment?
Kimberly
You can absolutely drop the watch off without an appointment. I’m actually not able to view previous appointments so I wouldn’t be able to pull up those notes and see if another appointment would be needed.
David
OK, thanks
Kimberly
You are very welcome. Did you want me to check into available appointments for you?
David
I thought you just said I did not need an appointment to drop the watch off for repair?
Kimberly
You do not need an appointment, no. You always have the option to make an appointment, though. I just wasn’t sure what you were wanting to do.
David
I will be traveling to Atlanta soon and can go by the Apple Store in the Lenox Mall. Can I reference this online chat and give them the iWatch for repair?
Kimberly
You absolutely can, yes
As you can read, she was crystal clear that I would not need an appointment. So when I arrived at the Apple Store in the Lenox Square Mall, after driving nearly four hours to do so, I was very frustrated to learn that “of course I needed to have an appointment to get my watch repaired.” So Kimberly had lied. Or maybe she hadn’t really known and instead had said what she thought I would like to hear. Or maybe she had been badly trained and thought you could drop off a watch without an appointment. Regardless, I was not happy. Trying to stay grounded, I had a back and forth with the Apple Concierge (who did an excellent job of allowing me to be a little frustrated but never got frustrated with me). I was able to show him the chat string (another reason I like chat over a phone; you can email yourself the chat record) and he saw the exchange above. Off to talk with his manager, and back to tell me sorry, but I did have to have an appointment and they would get me in before the store closed at 7:00 (it was a Sunday).
At 7:05 the store was slowly clearing out. I still hadn’t seen anyone, and my dinner appointment was waiting for me at a local restaurant. All because Apple had failed on a key element: setting the appropriate expectation and then meeting or exceeding that. It’s much harder for a company like Apple that does such a great job in providing service, and so when a hiccup like this occurs, it is magnified one-hundredfold.
A 7:18, a very nice Apple Store employee came over to work with me. After greeting me, she said, “So you just need to drop off your watch for repair.”
Ok, I was thinking, I can get to my dinner appointment a few minutes late. Then she immediately started asking me questions about troubleshooting the watch problem! I thought I was going to just give her some information and then the watch, since the store was long since closed, but even though she had stated that I was going to drop off the watch, she was now trying to work with it. Maybe it’s required that they do this. She rebooted the watch (some special reboot option she told me) and the watch now seemed to be recognized by the iPhone. Question: why wouldn’t the person at my Genius Bar appointment tell me how to do the special reboot? Why wouldn’t it be listed on Apple Care online? Why wouldn’t Kimberly have told me to try this? Apple fails …
So I connected to the WiFi and it started to download the new software update for the watch. The estimated time to complete was … one day. Hmmm. Neither of us was staying overnight at the Lenox Square Mall, so, at 7:28, she finally agreed to send my watch for repair. Thirty minutes late to my dinner appointment, and to add insult to injury, I had to re-enter all of my contact information into the service app on her tablet, even though everything I was keying in was EXACTLY what I could see above from my AppleCare record. This was the dumb stuff that other companies did, not Apple.
Here’s the thing: I talk about Apple a lot. I share how other entities, particularly financial institutions, need to emulate their in-store model of consultative selling, education and problem-solving. My experiences with Apple in all facets of their business have been overwhelmingly positive and exceeded my expectations. But when they fail, especially as monumentally as the experience I related above, I have to call it out. They sent me “How did we do” surveys for both the chat session and the Genius Bar session, and I gave a full account on both. Maybe some manager will call me to chat.