Sadly in my country, we are still waiting for the 1st official Apple store to open. Currently we are served by Apple Authorised Retailers and the service experience varies from one to another. Any warranty replacement, takes a long time since it has to be shipped to neighbouring country, which is the closest with Apple centre and wait around 10 days minimum before any updates are given.

Hope that once we have the official store here, things will be a lot better like what you experienced.