I don't like to write all negative reviews and unfortunately this is the worse Apple service store…read moreI have ever experienced. The positive is that all the employees were extremely positive and smiling.
I arrive around 5pm on Thursday afternoon after having trouble with Apple phone during a trip. I was told they will let us know if they can change the battery within 30 minutes, at most an hour. At 7pm, there was still no news. At 7:55pm, I was told the battery can not be changed and since battery had been changed by a non-authorized dealer before. The store is closing at 8pm, so i have 2 minutes to decide if I want just leave with my broken phone or I purchase a new phone. Actually they preferred I just walk out with broken phone since they were closing and would have to find English speaker sales to help. By the way, the phone still works, just needs to be recharged constantly. And since we are in EU, I figured we can get a new phone and get tax rebate.
I decided to purchase a new phone, then they tell us since the computer been closed, they can only accept credit card payment, fine. Then we asked about transfer data into the new phone. The girl helping said oh, it will take max 20 minutes, just come back tomorrow or we can do it ourselves, ok. So I said we will try it and if it didn't work, then they can transfer with the wire/computer set they have that I had used before. The girl assured us that is no problem. We spent 2 hours Thursday night trying to transfer the data and it didn't work. The phone would only transfer part of the App and some of the data.
Go back to Apple store on Friday morning at 10:30am, I mentioned about transfer data problem and asked for the wire/computer set, Tax Rebate, and screen cover. Interestingly enough, the Apple employees, including a manager, never offered Tax Rebate or screen cover until asked. So even though upon arrival I had explained about not able to transfer data, the employee didn't believe me. He used the exact same method I did three times, and the phone still wouldn't transfer all the data. Finally another guy took out the cord and the computer set that I had asked at 10:30am, and after 2nd try, the data was transfer to the new phone. It was 3 hours later at 1:30pm in the afternoon when I left. During the 3 hours, I saw lots of new customers trying to transfer data and were not able to, and I didn't see anyone leave within 20 minutes. Some of the customers were older, so the "tech" would kept telling them to wait even though their data were not transferring either! Most people were there for at least an hour, compared to the 20 minutes Apple had mentioned.
On a side note, I finally had enough waiting for someone to help me after 2.5 hours so I would stand next to the tech whenever he moved. This way if the transfer did not work, I could get his attention immediately. By the way, rather than group the customers together to shorten walking around time, the "techs" were spending endless amount of time walking from one table to another, and having multiple customers wait. This Apple store should really think about Lean System and listen to their customers.
