Mac AppleCare - UK style

Today, I visited the Apple store on Regent Street - it's a huge flagship store in the middle of London's fashionable shopping district. Walking in I somehow felt much hipper than the last time I'd entered an Apple store. Even with a baby in tow, this time I at least had the experience to know how this whole thing works. I also had the determination to get the help I needed.

When I asked about the Genius Bar (the techies who work on macs in the back rooms of the store) I was told by the Lobby Host to talk to the Appointment Guys. The Appointment Guys showed me how to sign in online and then felt very little sadness or sympathy for me when I realized that the next available slot was 47.5 hours away. Apparently, "they don't see _anyone_ same day". They take appointments up to 2 days in advance and just open up 1 hour appointment slots at the top of each hour. I hope that my face didn't reflect my disappointment too much, as I thanked him for his help and set off to try again.

Well, I had no intention of leaving. I had *perfectly* timed my visit to arrive by bus on a weekday morning with a happy, clean, rested, and well-fed baby. And I had remembered to load my bags full of AppleCare warranty info, US chargers, international adapters, cheerios, yogurt, bibs, spoons, bottled water, toys, baby mobile phones, and soft touch books. I was not going to be dismissed that quickly. Plus they clearly had 325 employees on duly this morning. Surely someone here could help me...

My next strategy was to head upstairs with my computer and Brooks in his stroller and simply park ourselves in front of the Genius Bar (GB). I hoped that I could find someone to ask about solving the problem myself. This time I was onto something. The GB Hostess enjoyed Brooks immensely - he knew when to grin at the appropriate time. I started with my usual "I have a problem and I'm hoping you can help me." I have found that this phrase can work wonders with under-appreciated customer service folks. Once she listened to my story (sick computer, start-up discs in US, blah blah blah) and offered me a solution (Just phone AppleCare UK and they can mail you the discs you need to reinstall your hard-drive, no problem...), I then realized that I had gotten what I asked for but not what I wanted. I asked if it was possible to chat with a GB guru, to double-check that I would know what to do when the discs arrived. A GB manager leaned into the conversation, quickly determined that I didn't have a clue what I was doing, and gave the GB Hostess a sideways look that I translated roughly to "just squeeze her in". Apparently arriving at 10 minutes til the top of the hour was ideal timing. They had cleared through their previous hour's appointments and knew they wouldn't be running late for the next hour. Sweet!

Brooks and I sat on a nearby bench for about 20-30 minutes, and waited for them to call my name. We played peek a boo and pat-a-cake, flirted with other customers (Brooks, not me), and sang Old MacDonald. When they called me over, I met Ed - my GB guy - and tried to explain the problem. Of course Brooks picked that exact moment to start screaming. The female customer next to me (a French mom of two pre-school boys) was waiting for her GB guy to do something, so she distracted Brooks while I tried to put together an intelligent collection of thoughts about the computer's issues. Ed was amazing. He solved my problem in about 15 minutes by deleting some burn discs and other duplicate files on my hard-drive (which means that I *had* created my own problem when backing up my photos - I had filled up my entire 80 GB hard-drive!), hooking it up to their back-up hard-drives, and reinstalling my OS and rebooting. Or else something like that. Anyway, he also told me about an adapter I could get so I wouldn't be carting around my huge universal power strip all the time (Definitely need that!) and offered to replace my interior casing free of charge while I waited. (Shel, the discoloration on my wristplates was a faulty plastic in the original model, not dirt!! and it is completely fixable. Again, Hurray!)

When I realized he would need to take my laptop into the back, I asked if they could also just install the new software for me while it was back there. I mean, all these issues were caused by my photo back-ups which I did a precursor to getting this new software program called iLife'08. Absolutely, no problem, he says. We'll just need about 5 minutes more.

So I waited, and quite happily. Brooks and I had a little yogurt, strolled around the store and browsed through their vast array of products. And about 30 minutes later, I walked out with a shiny new white casing surrounding my perfectly functioning and completely upgraded laptop. I felt like I had just conquered the world. Brooks was exhausted, as we'd been in the store almost exactly two hours, but we didn't have to go back. It was done!!

So I say, London's Regent Street Genius Bar is better than Chicago's Michigan Avenue version. I couldn't be happier. I celebrated my success on the way home by dreaming up all the posts I still want to write on my blog.

More soon... :)