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Comment by simonh | Hacker News Reader

>Sad to see the Apple desktops gone.

Nobody goes to the Apple Stores anymore, they're too crowded.

Apple need to take a long hard look at the nose dive their customer service has taken in the last few years. I love Apple kit, I really do, but Apple the company are starting to become increasingly difficult to like and do any sort of business with.

I have many personal data points on this, but below is the worst i've encountered in any retail store in my life:

I went into an Apple Store to purchase 3 (yes, 3) Macbook Pro's (old style, they were in stock at the time) in early December (for some new staff that were starting), knowing exactly the model I needed. I was told I would need to make an appointment and come back in 90mins. Really? A customer comes into your shop, looking at spending over £7k without hesitation and you say go away?!?

I said to the store member that I thought this was unacceptable, it would take someone literally 2 minutes to go into the storeroom, pull them off the shelf and swipe my card.

The response was that it was now the lead up to Christmas and they were very busy and there was nothing they could do about it. My response was that they need to tell their boss(es) to hire more staff for busy periods.

I walked out without purchasing and didn't return.

I like this story, I like the part where you walked in thinking buying THREE laptops they would fall to their knees in joy.

So did you buy online or.... ? ;)

TBH, the fact it was three doesn't alter my perception of the situation. I didn't expect them to fall at my knees because of the quantity. If I had walked in sure of the fact I wanted to buy 1 iPod touch or 1 Apple Watch and knew the model, I would have found the same level of frustration with their inability to just sell me what I want. In fact, the frustration might have even been amplified.

I get they have a lot of people who need help making a decision around a purchase and they want to assist those people, but they have to realise some people just want to walk into a retail store, pay, and get out as quick as possible. I don't have 90+ minutes to hang around waiting in a shopping centre on a week day afternoon just to buy something.

I'm unaware of any other standard retail store where you would need to book an appointment to make a purchase, even high end jewellery & fashion.

To answer you & the sister comment - we didn't. We purchased some Dell laptops instead - cheaper, worse build quality, etc. but the staff are largely desk based and use Windows anyway. Performance is as good. We've since started buying less (almost no) Apple hardware as we are happy with the quality / price compromise in most instances. We would generally spend £50k a year with Apple, this year it will be more like £10k.

I can't speak for the UK, but in the US, if you go to anything other than a luxury boutique, they will jump all over you for a $7k sale. That customer may change their mind or take the sale elsewhere if you put them off for 90m.

Did you end up purchasing the 3 Macbooks anyway If so, Apple's bet that you want the machines enough to tolerate that behavior was correct.

I get the reference but they may as well just be Facebook stores because that's the only thing people are looking at in them.

Seriously. The Apple store on the north side of Indy is in an upscale mall, and you can walk halfway across the place to get to a Microsoft store. The Apple store is always elbow-to-elbow. The Microsoft store is always crickets. The difference is embarrassing. I almost feel bad for Microsoft. (Almost.) I imagine it's one of the few places that a Microsoft store is so close to an Apple store, but I could be wrong. It's a wonder they keep it open.

No, even in our local mall in a Maryland suburb, the Microsoft store is a few doors down from the Apple store.

I think this is a common strategy.

Is the traffic at the MS store there anywhere close to same as the traffic at the Apple store, or is it night-and-day, like Indy?

It's night and day :) The MS store is always empty. It was even empty when the apple store closed for months to expand and renovate.

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