awesome Mac customer care.

[brawndolicious]

http://www.scripting.com/stories/2007/12/22/macsAreEvenMoreExpensiveTh.html

Macs are even more expensive than I thought

Saturday, December 22, 2007 by Dave Winer.

When I got back from Europe my black MacBook wouldn't boot, it just sat there with a disk icon and a flashing question mark. So I made an appointment at the Apple store in Emeryville to have it looked at.

When I got there, there was no wait, they were calling my name. The repair guy opened the Mac, took out the disk, went into the back room, and came back saying the disk was bad, I'd need a new one. How much? $160. How large? 80GB. I've been buying disks lately, I bought a 500GB disk for $150 a few weeks ago, and just bought a 1TB disk for $280. So I knew that $160 for 80GB, even in a portable form factor, was probably a ripoff, but I figured here I am now, I can get the computer working, so I said OK and shrugged it off.

The new disk went in, I signed a form, and was about to leave and asked for the old disk and the clerk said it was his not mine. They were going to send it back to the manufacturer. I figured it would be refurbished and sold cheap to someone in a third world country. Little did I suspect.

He got his supervisor. She insisted that the drive belonged to Apple, even though I had paid an inflated price to buy a new one. She showed me the language on the reverse side of the form I signed. It was even worse than she had said. There was no guarantee that the drive they had just put in my Mac was new! It might have been someone else's defective drive. I said it was outrageous. I grabbed a copy of the agreement and left.

I scanned the agreement, highlighting section 4, the part the store manager cited.

Now there are a lot of speeches I could give. Here are a few.

1. I buy Macs knowing they're more expensive, but I expect to be treated better. I drive a BMW for the same reason. Luckily there's Mercedes, Audi, Lexus, et al to keep BMW customer service in top form (which it has been so far, I'm on my fourth BMW). I always say this -- Apple service is outstanding when you buy something, but it falls down, often, when you need it fixed. Not always, but often.

2. There are consumer protection laws that require auto repair shops to offer you the old parts. Why doesn't that apply to computer repairs? Or maybe it does.

3. Apple prices are ripoffs, but this is an unusually heinous ripoff. To charge such inflated prices for used parts, they should have some shame.

4. They don't seem to have any fallback when there's a dissatisfied customer. As an Apple shareholder, I think it would work better if store personnel felt they were guardians of the company's reputation. Consider for a moment that you are ripping off the customer. What tools can you offer the sales person to make good with the customer? Could you let the customers who object take their drives home? Could you offer a discount coupon on the next purchase, or free premium support for a year? That they let me walk out of the store, a person who spends thousands of dollars with Apple, feeling like I had been abused, says they haven't got all the glitches out of their retail process.

5. Falling back on the fine print is really lame. I think they should tell you up front, before they do the work, that you're not getting the old drive back. What if the data on the drive can be recovered? What if there are credit card numbers and other personal information on the drive? Source code? Trade secrets? Does Apple really want to treat their customers privacy so shabbily? For what? Don't they already make enough money off the $160 price for the new disk? It's amazing that a company can make it this far, having such special customers, and rarely if ever acknowledging it.

[CurseoftheGods]

Weird. I usually hear great stuff about Apple's customer care, especially if you have an AppleCare Protection Plan.

[bluemax]

Apple Store's are generally shit. And the Geniuses are no more computer savvy than the jackasses at Geek Squad.

[brawndolicious]

the article says that they are really nice when getting you to buy their shit, but that they are really half-assed when fixing it.  I mean wtf company keeps the hard drive from you when you are paying for a new one?  I can understand it if they are replacing it because the laptop was still under warranty but the guy just paid out the ass for a new hard drive.  apparently there is a law that mechanics have to give the customer all the old parts back but I guess that doesn't apply to computers.

[MrAngryFace]

In pretty sure you can find a bad example of customer service from any company, I dont know why these stories of extremes are enough evidence to send the villagers for their pitchforks.

[brawndolicious]

there is the pricing difference between Mac and other companies.

kind of makes you expect something...

[Fresh Prince]

This is old news. Though I guess it's more widely known as Apple increases their user base.

[CurseoftheGods]

In pretty sure you can find a bad example of customer service from any company, I dont know why these stories of extremes are enough evidence to send the villagers for their pitchforks.

ding ding ding

[brawndolicious]

probably 90% of the frustration comes from you know, paying $160 for an 80 GB hard drive!

[TVC15]

Weird. I usually hear great stuff about Apple's customer care, especially if you have an AppleCare Protection Plan.

My MBP is a lemon, and I have had to make frequent use of my Apple Care.  My experiences (four deaths in total) have been very mixed down the middle, and what makes me give Apple the BIG THUMBS DOWN is that they WOULD NOT replace my MacBook Pro after it died twice in the space of two months, after only one month of ownership.  I even offered to pay towards a replacement unit.

So it's died twice since then, pretty spaced out.  I love the computer, but the thing is a total lemon.  I need to do something when AppleCare is running out in order to get a whole new unit, or else it is going to DIE right after my warranty expires and they will charge me OUT THE ASS to fix it. 

[huckleberry]

I know it is only anecdotal, but when my iMac hard drive went out after Thanksgiving last year they didn't get around to fixing it until 3 days before Christmas.  The Mac tech at Comp USA called me every two days to tell me he sent request after request for Apple to ship the goddam hdd but they took their fucking time.  Another episode like that and I will most definitely have to reassess my switch to the "sunny" side of computing.

[Vizzys]

that'll teach him to buy a mac!

lol apple lol

[demi]

mactards, pfft

[TVC15]

I know it is only anecdotal, but when my iMac hard drive went out after Thanksgiving last year they didn't get around to fixing it until 3 days before Christmas.  The Mac tech at Comp USA called me every two days to tell me he sent request after request for Apple to ship the goddam hdd but they took their fucking time.  Another episode like that and I will most definitely have to reassess my switch to the "sunny" side of computing.

From what I have gathered from talking to other Apple Gays, the quality of AppleCare was generally pretty awesome before this Apple Renaissance.  Their hardware sales have basically doubled over the past two years, and that means they have more peeps to service, and they probably didn't anticipate just how huge the increase AppleCare workload would be.

I am kind of torn--I understand their position, but at the same time they demand a premium charge for care that is no longer of premium quality.  Plus they wouldn't replace the fucking lemon they sold me.