Tommy Karr

My iPhone has been having problems lately.  While I love it, in theory, it has been giving me problem after problem.  The Home button routinely sticks or becomes unresponsive, the system slows to a crawl making productivity nearly impossible, and, in general, it has become more of a paperweight than technology.

Then, on January 3rd, as I was leaving work, the whole thing went black.  I was on my way to the gym when I clicked play on the headphone controller switch and got no response.  I pulled the phone out of my pocket to see what was wrong and found that it was powered off.  Weird.  I pressed the power button… nothing.  I tried again… nothing.  The phone had not been dropped, had not gotten wet, had not had any incident which would lead to a sudden death.  What the hell?

I hurried to the Apple store on West 14th in the hopes that someone could get it working.  A floor rep greeted me and asked if I had an appointment.  “No,” I explained and showed him the sudden, bizarre nothingness of the phone.  “Well, I can take a look but we’ll need to schedule an appointment for tomorrow morning with a Genius,” and with that he played with the phone, holding down the power button then holding down both the power and home buttons… for fifteen minutes he squeezed the buttons until finally the phone lit up.  Now, to be clear, it didn’t restart.  It just lit up as though it had been pretending to be off for the last hour or so.  “I have no idea what’s going on with it man, but let’s schedule an appointment for you,” he said and so I was booked for 9:20am the following morning.

Here is where things got worse.  What follows is my correspondence with Apple, through CEO Tim Cook and various managers at the West 14th store.

Tim Cook, CEO
Apple Inc.
1 Infinite Loop
Cupertino, CA 95014

January 4, 2012

Dear Mr. Cook,

I am writing to express my dissatisfaction with my experience at the West 14^th Street Apple Store this morning in New York City.  I made an appointment for 9:20am and arrived ten minutes early to check-in.  The check-in representative was very courteous and instructed me to sit at the Genius tables and someone would be right with me.  Several other customers came and went, being helped by Geniuses one after another (after I had already arrived and after my appointment time had come and gone).

At 9:40am I asked a passing Genius if he could check how long the wait would be as I was already 20 minutes beyond my scheduled appointment time.  He said, “I don’t know how to find that information and I’m busy.”  And then he walked off without any apology or offer to find someone who could answer my question.  There was another Genius at my table assisting a woman (who had arrived 15 minutes after me but was being helped ahead of me) and I saw him sigh in disbelief at his co-workers attitude, but yet he offered no sympathy or “Let me find someone to answer your question for you.”

At 9:50am I found the woman who I had checked-in with and asked her about the status of my appointment, explaining that I was supposed to be in the office at 10:00am.  She apologized and said I had been “skipped by accident” and found a Genius to assist me.  Unfortunately, this Genius didn’t listen thoroughly to my problem and instead took my phone to the back to clean it.  When she returned I tried to explain further but she just told me to restore it at home and if that didn’t work come back.  I explained that I have restored it to factory settings and the problems (phone blacking out, Home button not working, incredibly slow processing) were still issues.  She said that was “common” and I shouldn’t be concerned and then told me to “have a good day.”

Well, I am not having a good day.  My phone is still being problematic and now I’m very frustrated with the lack of support and consideration I was given when I had done everything I was supposed to (scheduled an appointment, waited patiently, etc.).  I would like to know what other alternatives I have aside from returning to the Apple store to get this situation taken care of.  I look forward to your reply.

Sincerely,

Wilson Thomas Adkins

I heard nothing for a while and assumed that my letter had been lost in the corporate ether of the Cupertino campus. And then I received the following email:

From: Mike Franks
Subject: Apple W14th St.
Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2012 07:27:12 -0500

Dear Mr. Adkins,

I am a senior manager at the Apple Store W14th St. I received your letter about your experience at our store on January 4th. I first wanted to apologize for the poor service you received while trying to get your iPhone serviced. It is never our intention for customers to have to wait excessively; we also want all of our customers to get resolution to the problem they are having with their devices.

I would like to invite you back to our store so that I can have a technician work with you to find a resolution to the problems you have been experiencing with your iPhone. I will ensure that someone is ready to meet you so that we can quickly diagnose and correct the issues with your iPhone. If you would prefer you can call me at the store 212-444-3400.

I look forward to assisting you.

Regards

Mike Franks
Senior Manager
Apple W14

I replied with:

To: Mike Franks
Subject: Re: Apple W14th St.
Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 13:02:55 -0500

Thank you for your email. I apologize for the delay in my response. I’ve,
unfortunately, been ill the last week. Is it possible to set up an
appointment for a thorough diagnostics on my phone this week? It continues
to run slowly and glitchy, even after restoring it multiple times.

Sincerely,
W. Thomas Adkins

I received the following response:

From: Mike Franks
Subject: Re: Apple W14th St.
Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 13:14:14 -0500
Cc: Hector Soto

We would be happy to set up an appointment for you. Let me know a time that works well for you. I have cc’d another manager on this as I will be starting vacation tomorrow.

I wrote back, thanking him for his time and consideration, and arranged an appointment for 6:30pm that Thursday (January 26).

From: Mike Franks
Subject: Re: Apple W14th St.
Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 14:43:14 -0500
Cc: Hector Soto, Hans Parrado

You are all set for Thursday at 6:30. You can check in with Hans, he is our store leader, and will be on the floor at this time.

Thanks, please let me know if I can be of any assistance.

Mike

I was happy to be getting somewhere with this whole frustrating debacle. Arriving at the store the next evening, Thursday, I checked in for my appointment. Mr. Parrado, who had been included in the email conversation, came to say hello. “We’ll have you with a Genius in just a few minutes,” he confirmed and apologized for the ongoing trouble. “We will figure out what’s going on with your phone and, if we can’t solve it, we’ll replace it.” Great! I thought, This guy really knows how to take care of his customers. After a few minutes he then took me to the Genius bar… where things went from frustrating to You have got to be kidding me.

The Genius, and I use that term loosely at this point, said he would take my phone to the back to run a diagnostic test on it.  He made it as far as the end of the counter where he recognized a friend, stopped, chatted and then walked back to me and said he couldn’t find a problem.

“You didn’t even take it back there and do anything!” I was aghast.

“Yes I did.”  He looked at me coldly, daring me to call him a liar.

“You just took my phone to the end of this counter and talked to your friend.  You didn’t do anything.”

He shrugged this accusation off and said, “Let’s check the serial number and see what else we can do.”  At this he punched the number into his iPad and then said, “Ah, well, you are just out of warranty so there’s nothing we can do.  You can pay to upgrade if you want. I wouldn’t worry too much about a glitch here and there though.”

“No, Mr. Parrado said if you couldn’t solve the problem you’d replace my phone.”

“Nah, nah, nah, nah… can’t do that.”

“Can you ask Mr. Parrado to come here please?” I asked, desperate to end this aggravation.

“He’s gone.”

To avoid repeating myself, I’ll simply include the email I wrote back to Mr. Parrado.

To: Mike Franks <franks@apple.com>, Hector Soto <hsoto@apple.com>,
Hans Parrado
Subject: Re: Apple W14th St.
Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 19:35:33 -0500

Thank you for arranging my appointment this evening. I’m a little confused and concerned because the genius took less than two minutes to diagnose the trouble and yet still couldn’t explain what was causing the glitches and freezing in my phone. He told me that my phone is out of warranty and unless I want to buy a new one or pay the upgrade there is nothing to do. So I left with the same phone and same problems as before.

Mr. Parrado wrote back, asking when would be a good time to discuss the trouble over the phone.  I replied:

To: Hans Parrado
Cc: Mike Franks <franks@apple.com>, Hector Soto <hsoto@apple.com>
Subject: Re: Apple W14th St.

Thank you Hans. I am, justifiably so, very frustrated with the way in which this has been handled by the geniuses. Had someone told me during the first go-around that my phone was out-of-warranty and that there was nothing they could do to help me, it would have saved everyone a mountain of headache and wasted time. As it is, the genius last night took my phone, said he would take it to the back to diagnose the problem, walked to the end of the counter where he saw someone he knew and with whom he chatted and then walked BACK to me – never having made it to the back to do any diagnosis. He then said he couldn’t find a cause for the phone’s problems. He then looked up the warranty information and told me I was out of luck but could buy an upgrade if I chose. I was so astounded that he assumed I was vapid enough to think he had done any work when I clearly saw him for the two minutes he walked away and back. He then said, “I wouldn’t worry too much about a glitch here and there though,” as though I should be happy to have a phone that worked “some of the time”. It was enough to make me just want to walk out of the store feeling angry and abandoned… which
I did. At this point I felt as though Apple had given up on what I would think is an easy enough problem to solve… fix it or replace it if the hardware is defective. I was even told by you that it would be replaced if they couldn’t find a solution. Because of this, I feel like I would only be furious over the phone and you, having done nothing wrong in this matter, do not deserve my displaced anger. To avoid future confusion and frustration, could you please email me with a suggested solution to this matter so that there is something in writing?

Sincerely,
Thomas Adkins

Mr. Parrado did call though, while I was at work, and I asked him to call me again after 5pm when I would be free to discuss the matter.  He said he would.  I never heard from him again.

So, I sent the following letter to Mr. Cook.  I was done dealing with this store.

Tim Cook, CEO
Apple Inc.
1 Infinite Loop
Cupertino, CA 95014

[ Follow up to letter dated January 4, 2012 ]

January 30, 2012

Dear Mr. Cook,

I am writing to express continued frustration with the Genius staff at the West 14th Street Apple Store. My previous letter is included for reference as are the emails I’ve had back and forth with the store’s management team.

After writing to you previously the management of the West 14th Street Apple Store contacted me and asked to arrange time for me to return to the store to solve my phone’s continuing problems. At Mr. Frank’s request I scheduled an appointment for last Thursday, January 26 at 6:30pm.

I arrived at the store and was greeted by Mr. Parrado. Let me preface the following by saying that both Mr. Frank and Mr. Parrado have been very kind and I do not blame them for the failings of the Genius with whom I worked on this day. During our discussion Mr. Parrado explained that the Genius would run diagnostics to determine, as best as possible, what was wrong with the phone and, if all else failed, would arrange for a replacement.

He then introduced me to a Genius who took my phone, saying he would take it to the back to diagnose the problem. This Genius walked to the end of the counter where he saw another customer, someone he seemed to know and with whom he chatted, and then walked BACK to me – never having made it to the back to do any diagnosis. He then said he couldn’t find a cause for the phone’s problems and looked up the phone’s serial number in the computer. He said my warranty had expired and told me I was “out of luck” but that I could buy an upgrade to a new iPhone if I chose.

I was so astounded that he assumed I was vapid enough to think he had done any work when I clearly saw him for the two minutes he walked away and back.

He then said, “I wouldn’t worry too much about a glitch here and there though,” as though I should be happy to have a phone that worked “some of the time”. It was enough to make me just want to walk out of the store feeling angry and abandoned… which I did. After writing to Mr. Parrado I did receive a phone call on Friday, January 27. Being at work I asked Mr. Parrado to please call me back after 5pm. I have not heard from him yet.

At this point I felt as though Apple had given up on what I would think is an easy enough problem to solve… fix it or replace it if the hardware is defective.

I’m very frustrated with the lack of support given by the Genius. To avoid further frustration and disappointment, could you please contact me with a suggested solution? I look forward to your reply.

Sincerely,

Wilson Thomas Adkins

I have, not surprisingly, not heard from anyone at Apple since.  My phone continues to function only some of the time and I am considering switching to a new handset as soon as I can afford it.  You’ve lost me Apple.