When I was in Vegas for the WPT Championship, my iBook completely crashed, and made me very unhappy. If you’d like, you can refer to the Audioblog or moblog entries, and relive all the excitement for yourself.
When I got back from Vegas, I had a few e-mails from people who worked in various capacities at Apple. They all suggested I talk to different people in Customer care, and they were all optimistic that my problems with my iBook would be resolved. I was still pretty pissed about losing my laptop when I needed it most, so I was less inclined to expect the best, but I figured it would at least be worth a call to see if they’d be interested in helping me get the damn thing fixed.
So here’s the deal with Apple Customer Care: before I could even call one of the numerous people I’d been referred to, one of them called me!
He never told me how he knew, and I didn’t think to ask, but he said that he understood that I was having problems with my iBook. He listened patiently as I recounted my woeful tale, and he apologized that I’d had such rotten luck with my two iBooks. We talked for a few minutes, and though I’m legally bound to keep the details of our conversation confidential, I don’t think Apple will mind if I reveal that the Apple rep who helped me was patient, understanding, and completely helpful.
And late last week, my faulty iBook was replaced with a shiny new Powerbook. And I mean shiny. It’s all silver and tough.
So looking at the scouting report:
iBook: 0 for 2.
Powerbook: 0 for 0, but it looked great in Spring Training.
Apple Customer Care: 3 for 3.
Put another way . . . Will definitely do business with again!!!11 TOP RATING!!! A+++++++++!!!!!!!
Har. Har. Har. Gods, I slay me with my funny.
If you’ve ever had a problem with a huge company, you’d probably agree that (in most cases) customer service has all but ceased to exist. I can’t speak for all their customers, but it’s supermegaawesome that Apple cares about this particular customer.
. . . afterthought: In comments, Starkman says:“. . . you cannot even talk about the experience because you received free stuff in return.” I want to be clear: I can’t talk about the details because I signed the same NDA everyone who replaces a product signs, and I didn’t get anything for free. I don’t expect, nor would I ever accept, something for nothing.
Apple is a HUGE corporation, and I’m sure the problems of one user aren’t going to make a dent in their Big Picture, but they’ve always made me feel like they care about me as a customer. I appreciate that, and I wanted to share that appreciation in a public forum.
. . . one more thought: If you’re so invested in cynically believing that this wasn’t just good customer service, nothing I can say will change your mind, so don’t waste our time reading the rest of this.
Quite a few people think that I got some sort of special treatment because, they say, I’m some sort of big celebrity or something. Newsflash: I’m not.
I’m sure experiences at the genius bar vary from store to store (I’ve always had a fantastic experience in Pasadena), but my experience, at the corporate level, is the same as I’ve heard from countless other Apple owners: if a problem can’t be solved at the store-level, and it’s properly escalated, Apple takes care of it. That’s awesome customer service. I got called because I was already in the system from my previous problem, and that’s just Apple CS protocol.
So why did I write about this? I didn’t have to say anything, but I wrote about it when things went wrong, so I thought it was only right to write about it when things got fixed.
