[RGK]

When I went to the Chennai reseller with an issue with my iPhone 7 a few years ago, they charged me Rs 600 merely for a diagnosis. I sent the phone to the USA and was able to get in touch with the customer care staff. They fixed it by extending the warranty by a week.

They claimed that there are only resellers for Apple products in India; there are no direct Apple stores to help customers. Believe they are addressing this now, and hope that more stores will be created in India.

[veyron_head]

While I am not an iphone guy, being able to buy and walk out of the store in minutes is such a good thing. Everytime I walk into the samsung store, it takes 1 full hour to do the billing, even when there is no one in the queue. Something or the other breaks in their billing software. Have tried this with atleast three samsung cafe's. Same result.

[NiInJa]

Curious to know what this apple store is all about, as I've never been to one. I have had a good experience with Samsung smartcafe in terms of delivery speed and overall customer service.

The resellers here are same as any other brands and at times even worse. I for one had a mediocre experience buying an iphone last year at iVenus, Pune.

I don't think the sales person was super knowledgeable, took a long time to get the purchase done (long queue, payments getting stuck etc.) and at the end, botched up the operation of putting a tempered glass over the screen (mind you they charged 1000 odd rupees for that), I got a good one from Amazon again after few days and applied it myself with no bubbles or dust

Hopefully, the after sales service experience will be great at the store. At the same iVenus store, I tried to fix an old iphone 7 once, it just had a broken sim card tray, but I never got an 'appointment' to show it to their specialist team. They asked me to come after a week, twice! Just for a sim tray mind you! The dismissive attitude the guy showed was hilarious. His tone carried an air of supremacy. Lost my patience and did some jugaad to get it working just to have my password reset.

[ubermensch]

Sounds like a cool new experience. How are these any different from the plush apple stores (reseller stores - like Unicorn at Cyberhub and some others at malls)? I wonder if it has any bearing on services and repairs.

[quickdraw]

Apple Store Delhi is opening just after the Mumbai one. They just revealed today

https://www.apple.com/in/retail/saket/

[extreme_torque]

Well the next time you are at apple store try and notice the following - it gives you an insight into how incredible Apple's attention to detail is and its not just restricted to their products

1. The Apple designed paper bags that they put your stuff in. Well that is built using their own patented process and even the grab loops are their own design.

https://www.theguardian.com/technolo...cled-paper-bag

2. Look at how clean the tables where the products are displayed/kept look - where are the wires you say? Well they are run through the the legs of the tables to keep it all neat! But where are the electrical outlets you say? Well they are gesture controlled and rise up accordingly. Watch below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPFvm2PnSzQ

3. For the back room access you would see that the door has no RFID sensor so how do employees open that door? Well they just tap at the corner of the table closest to the door!

4. The store badges for the employees are their own Memoji's
https://9to5mac.com/2020/07/31/apple...adge-shortcut/

5. The machines that they use to scan your purchase item and bill you is an iPhone. No Master Card/Visa machines for Apple.

While I am sure Apple wont have the same 14 day return period as they do in some other parts of the world due to misuse/abuse (Apple's warranty in India used to be as good as anywhere else in the world until people started misusing it and get their phone's damaged on purpose to get a replacement device) but the overall shopping experience would be exactly the same as any other Apple store in the world.

I havent come across another company which is so obsessive about the experience that they provide to their customer - from product to purchase to aftersales and until I find one, I will remain an Apple customer.

[kiku007]

Originally Posted by vb-san

This is so true. I have not seen this kind of efficiency in any of the retail stores/brands – be it mass-market or on the luxury side. And the staff is so equipped to play it along depending on the customer needs/product awareness.
The experience of booking a Genius Bar service is same – insane efficiency and you never feel rushed.

Originally Posted by Jeroen

I have been to Apple stores all over the world. The look and feel is identical. They tend to have extremely well trained staff. Both in terms of product knowledge and how to deal with customers.

Jeroen

Originally Posted by aquarian1502

Last month I purchased an iPhone at the Apple store located in Westfield Valleyfair Mall in Santa Clara, CA. Must say the experience of buying was super smooth. There is no concept of billing counter, the sales exec who is assigned to you helps out with everything.
They also helped in copying data from an older iPhone in less than 30 minutes as we opted for a trade-in.

Originally Posted by extreme_torque

Well the next time you are at apple store try and notice the following - it gives you an insight into how incredible Apple's attention to detail is and its not just restricted to their products

I havent come across another company which is so obsessive about the experience that they provide to their customer - from product to purchase to aftersales and until I find one, I will remain an Apple customer.

It might be interesting to know Apple's marketing manifesto from the past. The Apple store / Genius bar experience has consistently exceeded my expectations. One of the reasons I would highly recommend Apple Care+.

Apple's simple marketing manifesto penned by Mike Markkula:

1: Empathy
Apple should strive for an "intimate" connection with customers' feelings. "We will truly understand their needs better than any other company," Markkula wrote.

2: Focus
To be successful, Apple should center its efforts on accomplishing its main goals, and eliminate all the "unimportant opportunities."

3: Impute
Apple should be constantly aware that companies and their products will be judged by the signals they convey. "People DO judge a book by its cover," Markkula wrote. "We may have the best product, the highest quality, the most useful software etc.; if we present them in a slipshod manner, they will be perceived as slipshod; if we present them in a creative, professional manner, we will impute the desired qualities."

Source: https://www.entrepreneur.com/growing...nifesto/220603


Source: https://archive.computerhistory.org/...-05-01-acc.pdf