It can pay to be polite, especially if you’re shopping at the Apple Store. According to one viral TikTok posted by a former Apple Store employee, Apple lets its store staff hand out certain free perks to “really amazing people.”
In other words if you go into an Apple Store and be nice to the staff inside, and don’t behave as if they’re not also human beings, you may get some freebies out of it. If you’re rude, then you’re going to have to pay for everything.
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The term Apple reportedly uses is “surprise and delight”, and apparently each Genius has a quota they can utilize when customers need something. The example used was free replacements when customers come in with a water damaged phone.
Normally you’d have to pay to repair water damage, even if you have Apple Care+. But it seems like in some cases, customers were able to get replacement devices without having to pay anything. All thanks to surprise and delight, and the fact that they weren’t behaving rudely or mistreating the staff.
A number of people corroborated this claim, including customers and former Apple retail staff, though others have refuted the claims. Some deny Apple ever had such a policy, while others believe “surprise and delight” has been confused with policies that have since been discontinued.
In any case, it’s always good to be nice to retail staff. The job often requires long hours, low pay and having to deal with people all the time. The last thing staff need is for an angry customer to have a tantrum because they dropped their iPhone 12 in the toilet and have to pay to get it repaired.
Plus, who knows, you may even get yourself some free stuff for your trouble. Even if you’re not shopping at the Apple Store. Just don’t start frothing at the mouth if you still have to pay. From the sounds of things these freebies are going to be rare. Apple didn’t become one of the world’s most valuable companies by giving free tech to everyone.
