Apple Customer Service Drives Switching - Part III

It was a quiet morning at the office, so I was able to call Apple at 9:00 am. I spoke with a very nice and sympathetic CSR. After listening to my tale of woe, he immediately escalated my case to a Product Specialist, Jeff. I repeated the story, which annoyed me a bit, since I was on hold for about 10 minutes while Steve was supposedly telling this guy everything that I told him. In retrospect, I think he wanted to make sure I was not elaborating on the details, since the easiest way to catch someone in a lie is to make them repeat a story.I was polite and even tempered, but when Jeff gave me my options - ship it back to Apple for a repair or drop it off at the Apple Store, I said no. Frankly, a repair at this point was unacceptable. The logic board was already replaced once, and whether the problem was the display (unlikely) or the logic board again, it didn't seem right that a new machine should have to have two major repairs in a little more than two months of ownership. I told Jeff that I either wanted my money back or a new machine (and by new, I meant another refurbished unit with the same specs). He went quiet for a few seconds and said that he wanted to speak with a Senior Product Specialist about this, and would I mind going back on hold.

I'd now been on the phone for 40 minutes, about a third of which has been spent on hold. All I can say at this point is that I'm glad that Apple has such strong ties to the music industry, because the hold music was pretty cool - Bela Fleck, Neil Young and a roots music group I never heard before (some day I'll have to blog about being on hold for my original ISP and having Annie Lennox ruined for me for over a year). After another 15 minutes, Jeff passed me off to Dan, who started to ask/tell me about my MBP that was shutting down at random. I corrected him and repeated the whole sad tale yet one more time, ending with my request for a replacement rather than a repair. Dan said that he knew that (my repetition this time was apparently unnecessary) and that's what he wanted to discuss the replacement process with me. To try (yet again) to make this interminably long story just a bit shorter), Dan agreed that I should have my MBP replaced. After doing the mailing address intake, he asked if I had the order number for the original purchase available and he was surprised that it was for a refurbished unit. I asked if that would be a problem, and he replied no, of course not, but he'd have to locate a replacement unit for me.

I wasn't put on hold this time, so I could hear the keyboards clacking, and after a few minutes Dan came back on line. It seemed that there wasn't another 17" MBP with the same specs in the pool of available refurbs. Hearing this, I expected the next words from Dan to go something like this:

"Well, given that we can't replace your machine with another refurb right away, you've got a few choices. We can put you on the priority list for the next available refurb'ed 17" 2.3 Ghz with a glossy screen, or you can send your back for repair, or you can drop it off at your local Apple Store for repair."

You know what? I was offered none of these options. Dan's next words were this:

"We'll just have to send you out a new machine. It will be a 2.5 Ghz, 250 gb hard drive, 2 gb RAM and a glossy screen. Will that be okay?"

And I responded "Um, yeah, absolutely. That will be perfect."

Dan then ran through the RMA process. I wouldn't have to wait for Apple to receive my malfunctioning laptop back before they would ship out the new one. In about an hour or so, I would get a call from a Customer Relations representative to confirm my shipping address and the instructions for returning the MBP. I'd then get an email with a link to the FedEx RMA label, and once the package hit the FedEx system, my replacement MBP would be queued up for shipment.

It happened just as Dan said it would. By 11:30, I got a call from an RMA rep who confirmed my mailing address. A few minutes later, I got an email with the link to FedEx. I packed up the MBP and took it over to a FedEx/Kinkos and had them scan it into the system. By the time I got back to the office, there was already three emails from Apple, an automated message confirming receipt of the package into the system, and another from the RMA rep advising that since my package was in transit, the replacement order was now in process. The third message was from Apple advising that the order my replacement MBP had been completed and would be shipped soon.
I was really, really delighted, but by this time I had convinced myself that when Dan said "new machine" what he really meant was another refurb with better specs. That would be better than fine, too. Actually, when Dan said "new machine," meant brand new, fresh-from-the-factory-in-retail-packaging new machine. Friday morning brought another email from Apple, this time with the sales order number, which contained the part number - Z0F2, which is the product number for a new, not refurbished unit. The part number for a refurbished MBP is FA897LL/A (I put both items into a shopping cart to check this out).

Even if I still had any doubts, they were erased with the email from Apple on Monday morning, with the FedEx tracking number. My computer was shipped from Shanghai, China, not from California. The tracking page stated "overnight" shipping, which meant that my replacement MBP was scheduled to arrive sometime on Wednesday. It actually arrived on the late Tuesday afternoon Fed Ex truck. And it was a completely new, factory-fresh, top-of-the-current-product-line model

When I finish telling this story (usually without the geeky details like part numbers, of course), the listener's first reaction is one of awe or complete disbelief. Sometimes I'm told that I only got that "special" treatment because I've been such a loyal customer. I deny that one completely - at no point did I mention to Apple CS that I had been a Mac owner since 1986, and I've got no reason to believe that Apple CSRs would have access to all of my product registrations, nor would products that I registered back in the 1980s and 1990s even show up in the CS systems. This is how Apple treats their customers - each one is valuable, and they do what ever they can to maintain that relationship. Since this happened, I've told the tale to about a half-dozen people who were planning on buying a Windows PC. In no case did any one of them immediately run to the nearest Apple Store to buy a Mac, but since then, four of them actually did switch. Two were iMac buyers, one got the new MacBook Air and the other bought a MacBook a week before the new versions were released. He was pretty angry at me (although I warned him about the impending product refresh) until I told him to go back to the store and see if he could get the new model. He called me from the store to tell me how terrific Apple was - they exchanged his computer for a new model without charging the restocking fee.

You know what his first words were? "Apple really takes care of its customers, I couldn't imagine doing this with a PC."

Lita is a New York based attorney and a proud Mac user for over 23 years, which means she fits into the cliché of an Apple product owner all too easily. The first Mac she owned was the iconic 512ke, her dearest companion through law school. It was eventually replaced by a Mac SE in 1989. Her fascination with both Macs and storage is still a running joke among my friends and colleagues. She has the firm belief that an unmounted hard drive is a crime against nature.