Of course I’ve never owned one. I know that relegates me to cave status among Macarrati but I’ve never been able to pay the premium for what I consider under performing products.

Of course I shun shiny euro autos for the same reason. Nice looking but why pay a premium for snoot appeal. 10 years in LA could be my reason for this too…. Land of snootification.

Other things I don’t ‘get’ are why people stand in line for clubs while ‘bouncers’ let in only the supposed ‘cool’ people, which, ahem this Apple cult of personality seems to promote, when they would let any customer ’stand’ after doing what you did.

What I would argue is great ‘brand’ trumps crap service. Maccarrati obviously find some satisfaction in being mistreated and paying a premium for sub-par price performance, and non-universality of an operating system. I would also suggest, brand can only carry you so far — just ask Detroit. Once you lose ‘brand’ recognition as they have, you can almost never get it back. The US builds great auto’s but you wouldn’t know it from reading the papers….or looking at sales figures.

Apple, learn or face the consequence as some new upstart out designs and out snootifies you….

Your competition is always on your 6 o’clock.

create, conquer, adapt or die….

The Original Webwildcatter.

Old Man Van Horn.

So many people are blinded by incredible products that they forget that they deserve to be treated better in person.

Having worked in technology retail (including Best Buy) I can say that incentives are also based on selling the extended service plans. The stores do not markup big ticket items very much, so in order to profit, they sell their extended service plans. Sometimes they can be a good deal, depending on the cost of the item and the likeliness something will go wrong.

@Josh:

Now that Best Buy is selling Apple products, and if other stores follow suit, competition may help Apple realize they need to improve their customer experience. My advice would be to start shopping for Apple products at other retail outlets and encourage others to do the same (preferably in a public forum, maybe a followup post after you buy your next iPhone or something). Just a thought.

After asking all of the right questions and assisting me in finding just the right Sony for my living space she 9the salesperson gave me the 5 minute presentation for the extended warranty and the entire shopping process took less than 30 minutes from entry to exit.

Had I gone in knowing exactly what I wanted I imagine I could have done as Josh originally wanted to–swipe my card and be on my way.

Upon asking the salesperson I uncovered the fact the Best Buy sales associates do not operate on commision, rather they are given incentives based on customer surveys and units sold, not dollars sold.

In answer to Joshs question, I believe that a bad customer service experience can tarnish the perceived value of an item, but when you are dealing with a manufactures store your options are limited to either wait in line and deal with the automoton or order on-line and wait for the UPS truck.

After reading this, I think I will skip the Apple Store experience and just buy things online. The product is great and I wouldn’t go back to PCs out of spite, but I certainly wouldn’t give any of those people a commission. There are plenty of ways to give Apple your money without being subjected to the idiocy of the way the store is run.

I wonder how they would handle the new iPhone launch. I’m under the impression that you can’t activate the new phones online anymore you have to have it done in store.

I’ve also had nothing but good service at the Genuis Bar, but you have to pick your times. Legacy Village is a nightmare during peak hours

Yours & @NateKlaiber’s experiences make me wonder if Apple store employees get any commission at all. If they don’t, then where’s their motivation to please the customer?

All this time he was rambling on, and I was refusing him trying to sell me other things, we were waiting to go eat dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. The guy almost lost his sale from being stupid.

Just as with you, I previously had a 17inch G4 powerbook with a 23 inch cinema display, then a 15 inch G4 powerbook (same display), then a 20 inch imac, then a 24 inch imac, etc. The list goes on. I am an Apple addict as well. I found my experience buying my Macbook to be very opposite of the usual ‘feel’ of Apple products.