text: A few years ago I had an absolutely amazing customer service experience at this apple store I dropped my Macbook and had to replace it right before new ones were coming out When the new far more powerful ones were released I figured it would be worth a shot to bring it in and say that mine had crashed a few times that is true They not only replaced it with one of the new ones but gave me a hard drive that was twice the size of the one I had purchased There was no charge whatsoever and I was literally in and out in under ten minutes It was incredible It made me feel like my decision to buy a premium product for a premium price had paid off since I got premium service I told everyone about it nnFast forward to three weeks ago when I bought a new Iphone I reserved a phone on the web site and took the bus to the mall When I showed up almost two hours had passed since I placed the order Nonetheless when I showed up at the store it had not been processed So my phone was in the back of the store my payment had gone through but their system had not handled it yet Instead of figuring out a way to resolve this the employee I spoke to told me to wait for an email I ended up waiting in the food court for another hour That sure was not premium service but it as the sort of thing I could overlooknnThen last week I heard from my dad who is the account holder on our family plan Apparently through no fault of my own I had somehow ended up selecting a billing option that was going to cost us about a year for no good reason whatsoever The entire explanation is too boring to go into trust me though it was their faultnnAfter many many many hours on the phone w ATT it was determined that I needed approval from an Apple Store manager to switch the plan So I called them At least I tried to They did not pick up their phone For four hours I started a web support chat The rep tried to call them They did not pick up Finally after hours I screamed at the automated prompt Put me on with a fing person That cued an automated response We are sorry for your frustration Then magically I got a person By the way no one ever seemed to acknowledge how insanely unacceptable it was that they did not answer their phonennTo make a long story a little shorter when I finally went into the store they were unable to help me because despite the fact that ATT and Apple have been partners for over seven years they are still completely incapable of communicating with each other Again it is a long stupid frustrating story You will have to take my word for it nnWhen it became clear that we were going to be out bucks I asked the manager what he could do for me to take away the bad taste caused by their utter incompetence He hemmed and hawed and then asked What would it take to make you happy I replied An iPad If you give me an iPad I will not only be happy but I will go back to raving about what incredible customer service Apple has He scoffed at that and offered me a case for my iPhone That is right he offered me a piece of plastic to compensate me for at least hours on the phone and in losses I scoffed at that and we finally agreed to an upgrade to Applecare and a replacement cord for my laptop It felt like I had to fight for every inch here nnI told these guys exactly what they could do to make me happy and they refused to do it And lest you think that this was an unreasonable request think about it this way I have probably spent somewhere in the neighborhood of on Apple products in the last fifteen years I would likely spend tens of thousands of dollars more over the course of my life I would continue to tell people about what incredible customer service Apple has They could have secured thousands in profits for a few hundred bucks They chose not to nnApple products used to be better than their competitors They are not anymore and I knew that The only reason I kept buying them was because I thought I would get a premium experiencethat if there were a problem it would be solved in a way that impressed me without wasting hours on the phone They do not have that advantage anymore They are just the guys selling the same thing as everyone else for much much more moneynnNice work Apple nnThe only reason they get two stars is that one employee Patrick was really very good in dealing with the morons at ATT He is also the only person who seemed sincerely sorry about my experience Thanks Patrick You did a MUCH better job than your bosses Tell them to pick up their phone when it rings Oh and I would still be glad to take that iPad if you guys decide that spending a few hundred bucks now is worth thousands and thousands in profits over the next twenty years Something tells me that this is not in the cards