Today I had the worst experience at the Apple Store. I have bought a fair amount of Apple Computers. I have bought them for myself, for others, and helped others to buy their first Mac. I even go with my friends if they need to go to the genius bar if they need hand holding and have dealt smoothly with returns and exchanges with them. I’m pretty good at moving the process along and when buying something, usually get some sort of a minor discount along the way. Today a friend of mine was buying a Mac for his business because he is going to be releasing an iPhone version of one of his products. He hired developer who has already created it for him and he needs a Mac to be able to test it, submit it to Apple, and do some other work with it.
So I’m not sure if you’re aware, but Apple gives out all sorts of discounts, so many that I can’t really keep track of them. I just kind of know the ones I’m eligible for and stick to those. I find that Apple will usually make you jump through a couple small hoops and then gladly give you the discount you qualify for and everyone’s happy.
Now before I start the story, I want to say I’m very conscious of not being a douche in these situations, because I only want discounts I obviously qualify for. I don’t try to get anything else or convince them I’m a student or anything. I’m not like begging for discounts or anything, I just know the offers available, as if I had a coupon. When you buy as many Macs as I do, you just know the drill, you’re not trying to give anyone a hard time.
My friend had arrived before me and had picked out his MacBook Pro and was just about to pay. So when I showed up, I started mentioning the discounts he might qualify for. First I mentioned he was the owner of a medium sized business and would like to have his business purchases tracked by Apple as such. Now, this won’t automatically qualify you for a discount, but it will sort of grease the wheels and it’s a good way to get future discounts. Sometimes, however, this will get you a discount on its own, so it’s good to mention. In this case, they didn’t offer any discounts, so that was fine, we’d still sign up for the future benefits.
So the next obvious discount that everyone should get is that Apple will match the price at Amazon. It’s like a 3% discount, it’s not big deal, but it still pays for your lunch afterward. So I mentioned this to the girl helping us and she’s like, “I don’t know the Amazon price, you’re free to see if it’s different.” Then she sort of pushes the computer my way, not in a “hint-hint, this is how you get the discount” nice way, but in a “I hate you for making this difficult” mean way.
I’m thinking, “whatever” and look up the price on amazon and it’s a 3% discount just as I expected. No big deal. But then, this girl is like, “How do I see if this configuration matches, and how do I see the specs for this machine? How do I know that this one is new?” So we look through the site to get her what she needs, but I’m getting annoyed because it’s really not necessary. They knew before I even got there exactly what the Amazon price was, making me look it up on the internet is just due diligence. There’s no need for this drama. So she finds what she “needs” and says she needs to go check on the discount.
I’m fine with that and just expect her to come back and give us the discount, no big deal, they usually have to get management approval to give these basic discounts regardless. But no, she comes back and says, “Well, we can’t give you the discount because this Mac comes with Leopard and the one you’re buying here comes with Snow Leopard, so it’s not the same.”
Now, you realized what happened right? She went to talk to her manager or something, and as you would expect, they had the Amazon deal memorized by heart and had known about this little loophole well before I came into the store. It’s not like they investigated and found this.
At this point, I’m kind of upset, because I feel like I’m being jerked around. This is a tiny little loophole. So I say, “Oh come on, you know Amazon’s going to be offering this same computer with Snow Leopard for the same price tomorrow or next week.” And she says, “Well, then you’re free to come back next week and buy it.”
I look at my friend. Pause. And breath.
After that, she said, “We don’t just go handing out discounts, you know.”
So if it were up to me, I would have walked out, not because of the discount which was really small anyway, because of the attitude. What she could have said was, “You know what, I know we normally give these kind of discounts, but because of the economy management is all over us and we just can’t give them out right now. I know, it’s kind lame if you’re used to getting them.” I would have been fine with this. Like I said, I don’t want anything special, I just want the obvious Apple approved discounts that are available. Nothing more.
But my friend needed the computer for his business, it was actually a blocking issue for him, so we just bought the computer.
What was really off putting about this experience was that from the moment I got there, this girl had an attitude. I just ignored it until it became impossible. The funny thing is there was this other employee standing next to us watching the whole thing. I don’t know if he congratulated her or critiqued her after we left. But here’s the deal, I was nice the whole time and aside from just trying to present her with logic, I didn’t argue with her. She was downright rude and made it very clear at every turn that she had no respect for me.
My friend and I had lunch afterward, and he told me another part of the story. Apparently my friend told a different male employee, “Yeah, we’ve made a card game for the iPhone.” The guy said, “Well it better be good, because there’s a lot of them.” Odd. Just so you know, it’s not just any card game and last week it hit the million sold mark. Maybe Apple needs to raise the bar for their employees.
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