Disappointing experience at the Genius Bar

[M A V I C]

I think out of the four or five times I've dealt with Apple customer service in the past ~5 years I've only had one good experience. Some of that is due to the fact that by the time I need customer service, it often means there's difficult problem.

This time my MBP's optical drive was acting up. This is a big problem for me. I need it to be working next week and for two weeks after that as I'll be on the road and need that drive fully functional. I've been able to duplicate the problem but it is a bit intermittent. I can put a disc in a 10 times and on the 11th try it'll finally mount.

I arrive five minutes early for my appointment as requested. At 9:30 they call my name. We test some discs and the Genius offers to have a tech look at it and possibly replace the drive. I asked if the tech can't find a problem, will there be a charge and he said no. So I say sure and we begin the process.

But wait, my Apple Care isn't registered. I had my Apple Care registration info with me but was told that there's no way for them to do anything at the store. I had to call customer service. They offered for me to use one of the iPhones, so that was nice.

I called on my own phone and was told by the Genius that he rescheduled me for a 10:15 appointment. The phone prompts require voice input but the noise in the store must have prevented that from working right. Then I get transferred to a system that asks for numbers but it still doesn't recognize them so I had to wait for the system to go through all its options, repeating them... until I got a real person.

I would have gone outside but it was raining. I suppose I could have walked out to my car but I didn't think of that. My laptop (in pieces) and stuff was still on the counter and I didn't really feel like packing it all up.

The person I speak with isn't very good with English. Finally I get my message across and am put on hold for 10 minutes. Then the woman comes back and tells me the Apple Care is already registered to my laptop but they will mail me a letter of confirmation within 14 days. Apparently they did also update their system or make some change so that the Apple Store would also know it was covered.

At this point it was 10am and so I waited for my 10:15 appointment. There was no one at the counter being helped. They kept calling names and no one showed. Then at about 10:10 a couple people whose names they had called a half dozen times over the past 20 minutes showed up. It took two Geniuses to deal with one of them and there were only three total.

About 10:35 I finally get my name called and have to explain all the details to the Genius when the one I talked to earlier was sitting 12 inches from him. I tried to explain that the next step was to check it in but I guess he still had to enter in all the info into the system.

I understand that troubleshooting an intermittent problem is not easy so that's not really the issue. I'm more disappointed in the process of needing me to call Apple to have them fix something on their end so the Apple Store can check my laptop in and then having to stand and wait for people to show up late and then eat up a bunch of my time and push my appointment way back.

Another thing that bugged me some, but is a little understandable was that in the process I was told to do a clean install. The laptop had a clean install two weeks ago. I haven't done a whole lot to it. I also had said that I had Windows on there and it had the same problem with the drive. I was told it needed a clean install because they booted off a test OS and the disc mounted fine. We tried inserting the disc a few more times and it failed to mount every time.

FWIW, I tried several discs in it, inserting some a dozen times so the problem isn't with one particular disc.

[cbelt3]

"by the time I need customer service, it often means there's difficult problem. "

That's a telling point. Many of us on this forum (and other mac aficianados) act as our own "Geniuses". Why ? Because we have to.

But when we get to the Apple Store, we find that the Geniuses tend to assume that we're the lowest common denominator and run the script.

I usually short circuit that by bringing a list of everything I've already done. The guys at the local store are used to me by now, so I walk in, plunk the whatever down, and read off the list. By the time I get to the comment "I did the angry broken computer dance" part they know I know my stuff, laugh, and get down to the heavy duty analysis.

I do agree that the whole reservation thing is foolish, and if you're in stream you should have been able to go back up, wave, and be taken care of ASAP.

[M A V I C]

My flight home was cancelled so I didn't get home until late last night. I did all the troubleshooting I could on the road. I catch another flight in the morning, so my only chance to get it dropped off was today, and I don't have time to isolate the problem. I need it working when get back in town, or I would have worked on it myself.

[volcs0]

I've had only unfavorable experiences at the Genius bar. I carried my dual G5 in for testing, as it had intermittent kernel panics. Twice (that's x 2) I brought it in, left it overnight, went back, took it home and had the same problem. It was only on the third time that they ran the "extended" test and found the faulty processor, which they replaced. My arms ache just thinking about that experience. And it was a relatively new G5 at the time.

Nowadays, with my laptop, I only use the mail service. When they ask if there is an apple store nearby, I tell them I don't have a car (which is true). I've only had excellent experiences with Applecare this way.

Your experience sounds very frustrating. If you had the time, I would have recommended just sending it in... But since you needed it right away, it sounds like you were stuck.

[guitarist]

M A V I C,

1. which MacBook Pro is it?
2. do you recall installing the Apple Firmware update for the optical drive anytime in the last 12 months or so?

I have a MacBook that had a similar problem. A 2.33 GHz MBP from late 2006. This happened about 15 months ago, this issue. I did a little research and learned that one of Apple's optical drive Firmware Updates caused irreversible problems. Apple had immediately withdrawn--without explanation or apology---that firmware from their website, only a few days later. It was strange, seeing the discussion threads. Many users had no problem, but a sizable number did. Lot of discussions, trying to figure out what happened, while Apple was silent.

In some cases, the optical drive stopped working altogether. It's one of those odd rare cases where Apple's official Firmware Update rendered the drive inoperable, permanently crippled. And as it turned out, there was no Firmware fix, no software or firmware solution. The only solution is to actually remove the optical drive and replace it with a new one. Which Apple quietly did for customers who had malfunctioning optical drives.

I was one of those customers. By the time I arrived at the Genius Bar, I was informed enough about the problem to lead the Genius on hand toward that conclusion. Which he confirmed by testing my drive, and seeing what I did. It didn't work. My optical drive had to be completely replaced, which they promptly and happily did. There was no charge.

I don't know if that's the case with your drive, but if you haven't come across those reports, I thought it'd be worth mentioning.

[M A V I C]

[quote guitarist]M A V I C,

1. which MacBook Pro is it? Last gen of the 2.33 C2D.

2. do you recall installing the Apple Firmware update for the optical drive anytime in the last 12 months or so?

Possibly, but I don't really remember. I tend to update fairly quickly after an update comes out.

Thanks for the info on the firmware thing, hopefully the tech figures this one out.

[bazookaman]

I would think there'd be some way to register your APPLE care at the APPLE store.

[Black Landlord]

[quote bazookaman]I would think there'd be some way to register your APPLE care at the APPLE store.
When I called to make my appointment to get my new macbook drive, they took care of this then.
Did you make your appointment through Apple or through the store, MAVIC?

[M A V I C]

[quote Black Landlord][quote bazookaman]I would think there'd be some way to register your APPLE care at the APPLE store.
When I called to make my appointment to get my new macbook drive, they took care of this then.
Did you make your appointment through Apple or through the store, MAVIC?
The only way to make an appointment is through Apple. I did it online, however.

[M A V I C]

I'm actually kinda surprised I didn't get a bunch of people jumping on my case over this.

Anyway, where can I give feedback about the experience? I checked the Apple site and I can only give feedback on purchases there.