More adventures in (bad) customer service
I plan on bringing my three iDevices with me to the Netherlands tomorrow. But, I couldn’t find my international plug set for the chargers.
I did find the ones I last brought to China 8 years ago, but those are different plugs.
So, I went on line looking for them. All had a 4-7 day delivery.
But, the Apple web site said they were in stock at their Apple store about 15 miles from my home.
As it was a Friday night 48 hours before I go off on a week long trip and our favorite Indian restaurant is very close to there, my wife and I headed off.
Yes, foolish me. I went to an Apple store the day of a new iPhone release.
I thought, they’ve been on sale for 10 hours now, they’ll be sold out and I can just go in and buy my power adaptor and then go for Indian food.
I got there. No lines or anything. Just two Apple employees out front.
“Do you want a new iPhone?” one of them asked me.
“I’m surprised you have any left,” I said. “But, I’ve come for a power adaptor.”
“We have lots of iPhones left!” she said. “Just ask Tambor over there.”
She pointed to another guy.
I am kind of interested in the new ones, and there was no line.
“Do you have an AT&T, 64gig?” I asked.
“What color?” he asked me.
“I wouldn’t care.”
“No, we’re all out of AT&T ones.”
“Then why did you ask me what color?”
“It’s important.”
I went into the store and went over to the power adaptor area. It wasn’t very crowded. Maybe 20 customers there. (The Microsoft store two stores over had 3 people in it.)
No converters.
I looked for a sales person, they were teamed up 2 per person buying new iPhones. I waited looking at products on their wall.
Nothing.
So, I went over to their customer service person standing in the middle of the room.
“Hi, I’m looking for a set of international power adaptors for your product,” I said.
“They’re over on that wall,” she said, pointing to where I had just been standing.
“No, they aren’t. I looked there before asking.”
“Then we don’t sell them any more.”
“You don’t sell international adaptors any more?”
“No.”
“But, you’re web site said you did and they were in stock here today.”
“You must have misread it.”
So, I pulled out my iPhone and called it up.
“Available for in store pickup today!” it said.
I showed it to her.
“Maybe we have one out back,” she said. “Go wait by the wall and someone will bring it to you.”
I went and waited.
After a couple of minutes she came up to me.
“We don’t have any,” she said. “We don’t sell them any more. We don’t need international power converters any more.”
“You find that true on the day of a major international product release?” I asked her.
“Wait!” she said holding her earphone tighter. “They found one out back!”
Someone came out and handed it to her. She handed it to me.
“Now you need to see one of those sales people to buy it.”
She pointed to the 2:1 sales people in the center of the store.
I went into the knot of them and held the Apple product over my head so it could be well seen.
I waited.
I waited.
I waited.
My arm got tired so I switched hands.
I saw a manager at the back of the store point to me. A sales woman literally ran up the store to where I was.
“Do you need help buying that?” she asked.
“Yes,” I told her. “Apparently I do.”
The Indian food, when we finally got there, was particularly good last night.
I look forward to the leftovers for lunch 10 hours from now...