Tuesday, July 29th, 2008
The DVD drive was busted on my MacBook Pro last week. It’s still under warranty, so I took it to the Oakridge Mall Apple store. I told the guy at the counter what was wrong and he took it “in the back to get some information off the system.”
Now, I’ve had laptop problems in the past, and the usual course of action is to send the thing to Texas to get repaired. With shipping, I’m usually without a machine for about a week.
He comes back to the counter to talk to me.
- The good news is that we have the part in stock.
- That’s good. What’s the bad news?
- Repairs like this usually take about 3-4 days to complete. It *might* be done tomorrow, but don’t count on it. We’ll call you when it’s ready.
- Ok. That’s no problem. I’m going out of town anyway, so I’ll just pick it up when I get home after the weekend.
Customer service problem #1: He just took my word for it that the drive was busted. MY WORD FOR IT! He didn’t make me prove myself to him, his manager, his girlfriend, and his girlfriend’s mother. How can he, as a customer service representative expect me, the dumbass customer, to know what I’m talking about? Where was the scripted response of “click the Start button and go to Run…”?
He gives me a single sheet of paperwork and sends me on my way. Customer service problem #2: I was in and out of the store in less than 10 minutes. They didn’t even give me a chance to become violently annoyed.
I go home. Put on my pajamas. My phone rings.
- Hi. This is So-And-So from the Apple store. Your computer is ready to be picked up.
Now that’s more like it. It’s only been half an hour and they are going to lure me to the store in my pajamas only to find out that a) they called the wrong person or b) my machine has exploded.
Turns out, it was neither. My computer was in fact fixed. WTF? They told me 3-4 days? Don’t they know anything about customer service? If they say “3-4 days and we’ll call you” what they are supposed to mean is “6-7 days, and you’ll have to call us to get any kind of status update…oh yeah, and we won’t have any record of your repair order.” Customer service problem #3: Liars.
Fuck, it’s like Apple isn’t even trying to play in the same customer service league as the giants like Microsoft, Gateway, Dell, or Adobe. If they want to play with the big boys, they’ll need to stop lying to their customers about extra long repair times, and treating their customers like shitheads without a clue.
Good luck, Apple. You’re going to need it!
UPDATE: An Apple store employee read this and said “I don’t get it.” I’m not sure how the message got lost, but I want to be totally clear. This is sarcasm: a pattern of language this blog uses quite often. In actuality I was amazed and impressed with how fast and easy (like your mom!) the repair went. Usually situations like this involve a lot “let me transfer you” and “I’ll call you back.” Kudos, Apple, for a super-slick repair event. Hopefully, every trip to the Apple store will have the same result. Apple is one of the few companies who realize that if they spend $100 today to bust their ass on customer service, that the customer will be happy and return to purchase $3000 computer next year. It’s really just about the math.
