Customer Service
My son dropped his 32gb iPod last Thursday and shattered the screen. Small glass shards everywhere. You haven’t seen a more downtrodden pre-teen (unless you count the time that he lost electronic privileges for 3 weeks). Unfortunately, we were unable to make it up to the local Apple store until Saturday (which was an ETERNITY for my son). He looked up repair pricing and the bottom line was $149 for his particular flavor of iPod. His mood became even more dour as I explained that DW and I had talked – and even though it was an accident - he was going to be on the hook for half of the repair bill. A lot of money when you don’t have much income. He also understood that warranties don’t cover such things as falls, spills, or immersion in water.
Fast forward to Saturday. We set up a time at the genius bar and waited anxiously for our name to be called. I told DS that he would have to do the talking and communicate with the store employees and when we were called up he handed the shattered Pod to the genius (and even more shards of glass fell to the floor) but all he could manage to orate was “I dropped my iPod” – and then silence. The genius pulled the S/N on the item and looked it over. “Well, you’ve never had this item in for repair before, and its less than 12 months old. So, how about we just trade out for a new one and call it even.” Now, he also warned DS that if it happened again, he would be on the hook for the $150. He plugged the new device in and we were out the door in about 15 minutes.
My son and I talked on the way home. I asked him if he thought any other company would do such a thing. Apple will REALLY have to screw up in the future to lose my son as a customer. I’m figuring as a pre-teen, he’ll be buying, at minimum, 5-6 laptops, iphones, ipods, apple tv’s, transporters, Apple Cars, and iGenius brain implants over the course of his adult life……
I have a few other customer service stories that I could pass along but the above sums up my general experiences at both the local stores that I frequent. If you are a shareholder, you have got to LOVE IT, IMHO. I’m sure that customer loyalty isn’t the priority to every customer who gets such service, but many folks are willing to pay more and maintain allegiance to a product/company that will go the distance with customer service. For a good lesson in how not to do ‘customer service’ google x-box ring of death.
Cliff
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