Apple Store

Unfortunately, this store is really out of my way and I am much closer to the Tukwila location but it is worth the drive!
First of all, there is much more breathing room in this location and you can actually walk around. I am always helped right away, which doesn’t happen in the Tukwila location and the employees are always so friendly.
I bought my iPad Air 2 here and it was a great experience. I originally walked in buying the 16GB silver one and needed a case. The employee grabbed a bunch of cases for me and let me hold them, feel them etc. I told him I wanted a full coverage case that had a good stand. I ended up getting a red Apple Smart Case and I could write a whole review on the case itself (definitely recommend). When he brought the iPad out, I changed my mind and wanted the 64GB version. He happily took it back and brought out the 64GB version. I went back a few months later to get my iMac and again had a wonderful experience. I wanted a Bluetooth keyboard for my iPad as I was no longer going to have the portability of a MacBook. He helped pick out the keyboard, answered my questions about Microsoft Office 2011 and Office 365 (a necessary evil) and I was in and out with my new iMac in less than 10 minutes. As long as I am not in a time crunch I will always happily drive to Bellevue to visit this Apple Store.

This place is screwed up… University Village Apple … store we have purchased two computers in the last week. This last purchase is so fowled up you honestly want just give everything back and get a Microsoft … The people are nice but they are so busy & so rushed your herded around like cattle. Wrong cattle are treated better … We felt more like sheep … They try to do 3 things at the same time so 2 of the 3 have to be redone. It’s impossible to call the store. You get «apple Care»! And again while nice they (AppleCare) have no idea what’s going on in the store. All we want is the new computer we spent $$$$ on plus another $$ to transfer info from the old to the new. Possible? No, no they sold the item but then forgot the 2^nd part of the sale. Transferring the info from old to new. It’s almost funny they were throwing each other under the bus so fast making excuses … But we still have no computer. Can we come back next week. Really? Maybe time to sell my stock. They’ve forgotten half of what made them great … Real
customer service !

As you know, Apple products are all overpriced anyway. The only product I ever appreciate from Apple’s is iPad. But this review is for this Apple Store alone, so I will ignore all their Apple’s products.
I went in to ask for assistance to help fix one of the chargers. They told me to wait in line, in which I can’t make reservation like the Microsoft store. So, basically, you just have to sit around and waste your time for you don’t know how long, until someone is free to help you out. Comparing to Microsoft Store, they schedule time with you so that you can go to do whatever inside the mall and come back for it.
After waiting for the call for my name, they took me to sit at the waiting area to wait for another 10 minutes for someone to come help me. I don’t know what the guy name was but he was unfriendly and just rushed his work. He definitely figured out what was wrong with my iPad, but I was very unhappy with the service and the system here. If I don’t have to, I don’t wanna go back there.
The store was big and has tons of products you can try. Though, all Mac Products are the same anyway and going to the same direction (downhill and more overpriced).

This might be the largest Apple Store I’ve yet stepped foot into. It is enormous! Quite honestly I was impressed. It seemed very well staffed and not terribly busy which was very different than what I’m used to seeing in an Apple Store. While we were just browsing rather than being there for a specific need, it was nice to see the aisles not blocked by too many people. And the products on display were clean and not worn out or anything. Very well maintained store.

I got my cracked phone screen replaced in an hour… ON CHRISTMAS EVE. It was busy but they were still friendly and helpful even though I wasn’t spending tons on gifts like all of the other customers.

Horrible my iPhone is faulty no damage in the diagnostics but they want me to pay for the repair. I will never buy Apple again!

The worse customer service ever! Rude employees and people seems not know what they doing! Manager have no manners! Not coming back here again

UPDATE #3: I STILL have not received the phone call as promised by the store manager. The employees at this store are a complete waste.
UPDATE #2: I was able to call a different store at the University Village in Seattle, and I received MUCH better customer service and care there. They were able to 100% resolve my issue, and even apologised for the lack of service I received at the Bellevue location. Excellent service there.
UPDATE #1: I received a call from the store manager, Josh, at 4:54 PM. I didn’t answer, but he left a voicemail telling me he wanted to talk to me about my review. I called back at 5:10 PM, and a store employee answered. I asked to speak to the manager who called me, and she told me that he was unavailable. When she asked me to call back, I said «no, he can contact me back», and the employee scoffed at me as if this was some kind of joke. I gave her my contact info. I had to call back at 6:28 PM, and was met with the same response, only this time, the manager suddenly became so swamped that the earliest he could potentially call me back was tomorrow morning. I don’t spend my free time waiting for a manager of a store to call me back. There is NO WAY that between 4:54 PM and 5:10 PM that he became SO busy, that from 5:10PM to 9:30PM, he was going to be busy. This store employs not only incompetent workers, but apparently is managed by incompetent supervisors as well.
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I walked in to the Apple store at Bellevue Square mall in Bellevue, Washington. Prior to doing so, I had called the customer service line. Twice. Why twice? Because the first time, your automated machine «that can comprehend full sentences» like a human suddenly stopped working and couldn’t hear me. On the second call, I was redirected to a human, who couldn’t give me a straight answer of whether or not I could still receive a replacement charger free of cost, explaining that I am a recently separated veteran of the US Air Force and a new college student, so money is a little tight, and I need this charger to obviously charge my Macbook so I can complete schoolwork, while also clarifying that I understand I am outside the warranty window. She couldn’t tell me anything. So, she directed me to the actual store’s «technician» (I’ll explain how that is a joke shortly). I, again, explained to her that I understood that I am not under warranty, but that I absolutely knew that it was a faulty charger. She told me she couldn’t give me an answer on what they could do for me unless I came in. So that is what I did.
I walked into the store and asked to speak directly to the manager. When I spoke to her, for the third time, I explained that I am out of warranty and I knew that it was a bad charger, but I was hoping there was some sort of charity they could provide to me by simply replacing a faulty charger, a charger that, quite frankly, shouldn’t be built to fail (but that’s another complaint for your engineers). She told me, as I’ve already heard twice at this point, that she couldn’t tell me exactly what they could do, and scheduled me in for a tech appointment in 30 minutes.
AN HOUR LATER, I finally get seen by one of the store’s «technicians», and I explained, now going on for the fourth time, that I have a faulty charger, and if I could simply get a replacement charger due to my financial constraints. She told me, YET AGAIN, that I needed to wait for someone else to bring their charger in so they could verify that it was a faulty charger, so I was left to wait for about 10 minutes for someone else to come by, WITHOUT THE CHARGER, and explain to me that I needed to buy a new charger because I was out of the warranty.
The final employee, who was supposed to bring her charger to «verify» that it was a faulty charger, didn’t even bring her charger. Instead, she just brought her iPad with her and explained to me I needed to buy a new one. I told her very clearly, «Yeah, I was told that I needed to buy one, but I can’t afford to do that, and I’m not going to do that». She acknowledged me, then proceeded to start tapping away on her iPad, without saying a word to me, leading me to think that there was an alternative she knew of that would be in my favour, maybe even a refurbished charger for way less than $ 70. After about two minutes of just looking at her tap away, she hands me the iPad and asks me to verify my information so I could proceed to purchase a brand new charger. Basically, what I said went in one ear and out the other. Are you kidding me? I told her AGAIN, I didn’t want to buy a new charger, and finally left.

Went on there to get a charger. Very busy. In and out in less than 5 minutes. I thought it would take a lot longer.

I had a bad experience at this store. Customer service is poor, I spoke to their manager Sam Alvarez and he is incompetent. He cannot articulate Apple system. There’s also John Phurs, a tech person. He does not know what’s he is doing, I would be weary if he repairs your phone, he will break it and blame you for his mistakes. He did not even put my phone back to how he got it. They are all trained to tell you to pay you more money with misinformation, their sub standard product, and incompetent staff. I brought my phone in for repair, they broke the phone and did not want to return it to the original condition I bought it in. They want me to pay the full price for a phone that is defective. It’s time to leave iPhone, it’s simply not the same. The service, product, culture and employees are different from 2 years ago.
The other support need was asking for a simple iCloud update to transfer my iMessage from my old phone to my new phone, they cant figure it out. They can’t make it work and ask me to call customer service. If Apple Store can’t fix. A face to face support, how much more difficult it would be to do this on the phone. Sam Alvarez was too sacred to talk to me cause he can’t blame it on me anymore, he ask Jennifer to help him. This is how incompetent they are, a MANAGER who suppose to be trained handle complaints ask another person to intervene because he is not even competent to talk to me. If they are not train to talk to people how can they support us.

Matthew V. from the Genius Bar has tremendous customer service. He was quick and efficient. He didn’t waste my time asking unnecessary questions and got straight to troubleshooting my phone. Matthew V. made this Apple Store visit super chill and enjoyable.
This Apple Store, unlike the other locations does not require you to make an appointment for the Genius Bar 3 – 4 days ahead. You just walk in and wait about 10 – 15 minutes until someone from the Genius Bar come and help you.

Really poor customer service, the Genius Bar employees are almost defensive when it comes to fixing any sort of issue, I was told my «type» of bend was not covered under warranty despite the phone being 15 days old (I had just spent 6 hours in the store replacing my 1 year old iPhone two weeks ago). Only later to then be told they can make me an offer and then take it off the table and have a manager walk away from me… Talk about a changed Apple. Where has the customer service gone?
Extremely disappointing considering I’ve been an apple customer for years, since the very first iPhone. We just bought a Mac book pro AND an iMac 5K Retina display only to be treated like a criminal for finding fault in one of their products. The experience with this store alone and its «management» makes having an Apple product not worth it to me. We’re returning the iMac — God forbid something ever be wrong with it, it’s not worth the hassle. I just can’t stand by a company that treats their consumers that way.

Really bad customer service here. I came it at 9:30 right when they opened to fix the screen on my iPhone. After being moved from person to person multiple times they took my phone for repair and said to come back at 11 when it would be ready. Came back right at 11 and it wasn’t ready. Not a big deal if they were running a few minutes behind. I’m waiting and waiting and they keep telling me it will only be a few more minutes. 11:40 comes around and they tell me their testing failed and its gonna be another half an hour. I leave and call them an hour later asking if my phone is ready yet and they say my phone is unfixable and they need to replace the whole thing. Sounds to me like somebody did something incorrectly in the back and this was their cover up. At least i got a new phone, but everything was completely restored.
No apology and when I went to pick up my phone it took another half an hour. When all was said and done it was 2 in the afternoon when my phone was ready. Sheesh.
TLDR– super slow service, not very friendly staff, caused more damage and had to replace phone completely.

too busy all day. (Genius Bar review only)
There are lot of genius people at the Genius Bar, which is super helpful. Came into my appointment 8 mins late and I still got to see someone about my IPhone. So not too bad.
I think quality is an issue with each individual person you get assigned with, the guy I saw was nice, succinct, and helped. My iPhone 5’s display had jacked up, and needed a screen replacement or a possible replacement in general. But he just opened it up and didn’t hound me down to purchase anything or whatnot and told me what my options were.
Also helpful with other questions. I would come back here again if I had an issue.
You definitely need to know what happened to your apple product too. So know a little about the hardware before they fastball you with prices, some services don’t actually cost anything.

This store has a terrible customer service for such a reputable company. My Macbook had sticky keyboard issue after my kids spilled a little bit of juice by accident. But everything was still function-​able for 3 months since accident. Just wanted to get it cleaned up.
I went to Bellevue Square to get it cleaned up since I had full warranty service and product was less than 1 year old.
I spoke to technician about juice spill accident to be frank. Right away he started to claim that it will cost $ 700 to ship out and get parts replaced within 30 sec.
How can this be? He did not even bother to take a look or willing to see what can be done. He claimed that it is hazardous to open up the computer at this store and take a look at the issue to see if it can be repaired.
I said to him that nothing is broken. I just need it to be cleaned up. He kept insisting that this «REPAIR» will cost $ 700. It is 30% of product cost to get cleaned. Such a policy is just ripping the customer off!
He claim that apple product has keyboard as one piece and it is not possible to get it cleaned. I told him that it must have a terrible non-​customer focused and un-​serviceable design if apple store can not even clean up the own product or charge customer 30% of cost for an accident that occurs and fully functionable product that I do not need «REPAIR».
After very frustrating discussion, I asked for his manager. As he is talking, the store manager is making faces unprofessionally with this employee and send back the employee to tell me the same crap that apple warranty coverage will not cover liquid damage. He did not even bother to come talk to me. So I went to talk to the manage face to face and he act as if he wanted nothing to do with me and offered nothing for possible solution to help me out. He appeared to me as a cold, arrogant, un-​customer focused manager.
I left very furious and angrily with the disbelief that Apple store can not provide any cleaning or maintenance service. I told myself that it will be my last Apple product if the serviceable design and service policy is out of whack from customer needs.
I went to another store to give another shot to validate this bad experience. This service person agree to take a look to see what is needed after 15 sec of my brief problem statement. He opened up my computer on the spot and replaced a few keys to solve the problem within 15 min with no charge!
What a difference of customer service commitment. It was such a pleasure experience opposed to Bellevue arrogant crews starting from the store manager.
I will not disclose which store help me because they may have help me out of policy for a great customer service and engagement. Hats of to them if it was the case. To me they did what is right for customer by trying to find the solution, and show that they care, try their best, and actually fix the issue for free of charge!
Bellevue SQ store crews did not want to even try and refused my request in the first 30 seconds and decide to charge me $ 700 for service that can actually be done in 15 min with little cost.
Apple store in Bellevue needs customer engagement retraining and be more humble to provide nice experience to customer. Such a turn off to show such an arrogance as if they are the king of product. The truth is that they can not even clean the product for customer…
By offering 15 min labor and $ 5 material replacement cost or at least trying to show that you care about customer, Apple can keep customer for more life time revenue from me. One more system I purchase in future, I am sure they can get $ 1K plus profit. Considering family members life time revenue, they may get up to $ 10K~25K.
By pissing off customer for showing such arrogance. Apple lost me as life time customer and will loose revenue from my family. Which is is of $ 10K to $ 25K. If you are smart manager which option you will take?
Wake up!

Genius Bar? More like Meaningless Bar!
The service was awful. They put me in the «Will text» list and said it would be maybe an hour and a half, but probably not that long. I came back about an hour and 15 minutes later and was told there was 3 people ahead of me and it should be anytime me now and that they would tex me. So I waited, and waited and waited. Came back an hour later and still did not receive a text only to find out they cancelled my appointment for no reason. By the time I finally saw a «genius» it had been nearly 3 hours. Yikes!!! And this is on a weekday!
I just got this new iPhone 6 plus and was already having problems. For some reason the storage would fill up overnight in the «other» category.
At home I had already factory reset my phone 5 times only to wake up the next day with the same weird full storage problem; so I was already frustrated. You can imagine how frustrated I was when the «genius» solution didn’t work at all.
Long story short I was told by the «genius» that all I needed to do was delete the photos and videos from my shared folder and that would solve the problem. I even asked her how confident she was with that suggestion. 100% she said.
In the end, I figured out the problem on my own, ’cause let’s face it, I’m the real «Genius» here!
It ended up being a problem of previous backups I had to delete from my iCloud account, but this was no simple fix. Researched for hours to figure this out – so thanks for nothing Apple!
In the end, I am very disappointed with the level of expertise and the level of customer care! I shan’t be going back there again.

I’ve been a long-​time apple user since the early 2000’s and have had some of their early MacBooks.
Is Brandon his name? I don’t understand how this guy still works here. 3 months ago, my wife came in to upgrade to the iPhone 6 plus, and this guy tells us to stand to the side even though we have an appointment. «Someone will be with you.»
Well…that turned into a 45min wait, until my wife asked for the manager. Apparently Brandon forgot we were just standing there.
Fast forward to a week ago and the camera on my wife’s phone cracks. We make an appointment online and go into the store. Little did we know that Brandon still works there, and he’s the «specialist» helping us. My wife carefully explains the situation and Brandon stops her mid-​sentence. Basically calling her a liar and that it’s sapphire crystal — «It doesn’t break and that he’s only seen it happen once.» Well… if you’ve seen it happen before, than it’s possible right?
So while he’s calling her a liar, another apple «genius» knocks over the gigantic glass genius bar and it hits my wife. Doesn’t apologize, just walks off while Brandon just tells my wife she’s a liar.
This store is despicable.

I am a long-​time lover of all things Apple, so I’ve been in this store a couple of times: getting my first iPad repaired, getting the kid’s first iPod — and then iPad — and then getting that repaired, and so on. Yesterday, I popped in first thing in the morning, because my beloved first-​gen iPad was really, truly, at the end of its useful life.
My experience was everything I love about The Apple Store: Someone helped me right away, didn’t try to upsell me, and then answered all my questions until I was really, truly done. I bought an iPad Air2, and the salesman very helpfully told explained how I could use a personal hotspot from my iPhone if I didn’t have WiFi access for some reason — which allowed me to spend a few extra dollars on memory that I did need, rather than data capability I don’t. I appreciate that kind of help, along with the time he spent helping me get what I needed off my old iPad and onto the new one.
Can you save a few bucks going elsewhere? Yes, and I thought about it, but sometimes it’s worth paying more for good customer service, and that’s what I’ve gotten, every time I’ve been to this Apple Store.

*Update 1/​23/​2015*
This update is for the «Genius Bar». I love it!
My iPad was suddenly dead. Wouldn’t turn on. Dead as a doorknob. Both my kids pleaded the 5^th, saying they knew nothing, they did nothing, they heard nothing, the iPad just wouldn’t turn on. Hmmm, what could I say? I tried charging it, using different outlets and my two chargers, and it still wouldn’t turn on. So I made an appointment for the Genius Bar.
Check in at the Apple Store was easy enough, just going up to a staff member in the identifiable red shirt and giving my name. They are super prompt here: my appointment was for 4:20pm and I checked in at 4:15pm and my «genius», Jay (or maybe JJ. Sorry I forget!) was at my side in 2 or 3 minutes. He was truly awesome: very personable, and extremely knowledgeable. Those who know me know I am incredibly limited in techno skills and info (now THAT’S an understatement!), but Jay explained things in a way I actually understood, making excellent analogies with non-​technological things. He fixed my iPad issue within 10 minutes and then spent some time helping me adjust settings so my data could be backed up automatically and explaining the «Cloud» to me. Didn’t cost me a penny. What a great guy!
My only grievance is, when booking my appointment, I had to do so online and the options (days and times) were extremely limited to two days hence. I really wanted to talk to someone at the store, to book a time the following week, or on a weekend (even if it was 2 or 3 weeks later) but there was no option, anywhere, to call the store and actually talk to a person for assistance in booking an appointment. As a result, I had to go after work a few days after making the appointment online, and it made for a LONG day and I would have preferred going ANY other time. But there’s no way to talk to a real, live person for help in this area. You HAVE to book online, and there aren’t many options. That said, the service is amazing and the staff is wonderful (my experience as well as that of my friends and my parents).

We had occasion to stop into this Apple branch when we were on the east side. It’s a large store but the University Village is definitely bigger with more staff. They are located on the second floor, so park at the Macy’s entrance on Bellevue Way unless you’re really wanting to walk through a mall.
With no time to purchase online and wait for shipping, we headed inside to the shop and thankfully got our item quickly. They had the item that we needed in stock and the price point was the same everywhere we looked.
Staff experience was not as expected. I felt like the staff member was impatient with me and my issues. Maybe she had a bad day? I’ve usually experienced excellent customer care in the stores.