Let me tell you a little bit about why I’m an Apple customer. I know, I know, you’re already rolling your eyes and muttering words like “fanboy”. You think people like me are as stupid as the people who buy overpriced designer clothes, and you have all sorts of various other arguments about why Apple is bad and the people who are fans of Macs are idiots. A few of them are right, but most of them are wrong.
For the last week I have been trying to get a new battery for my 15” Macbook Pro. Nothing is wrong with my old one, I’ve just had it for a year and a half and that’s about the half-life of a laptop battery. As I knew I’d be leaving for France soon, I decided to get a new one. So I went down to the Apple store to get one, and they were out. They said they didn’t know when they’d get a new shipment, but that they get multiple shipments a day so I should call to check regularly. I left and called all the stores in the surrounding suburbs. Nada. I spent the next several days periodically calling various stores and still nothing. Until today when I called the Apple store downtown. They had a limited quantity, and I put one on hold. I got out of class early and hauled ass up to the store. When I got there, they couldn’t find it. Eventually they realized that the person who had told me they had one, had in fact been wrong. There was a huge line behind me and the manager asked me to step to the side and he’d see if he could figure out a way to help me.
I stood against the wall and started to steam. I was pretty pissed off already, because they made me haul ass over there, but the whole thing had taken so long that I was now also late for class. I waited about 10 minutes before the manager came over. He walked up and handed me an Apple bag, all folded up. He apologized for the mistake, and said since they didn’t have any batteries, he took one out of a computer that had come back with a faulty trackpad. I unwrapped the bag he’d given me and pulled out a pristine, essentially brand new battery. “There’s no way I can charge you for it, so have a good night.” I thanked him profusely and left.
So there you have it. Apple fucked up, I was super pissed, Apple fixed it, I’m really happy. I’m also pretty thrilled that I got a $130 battery for free. So whatever premium you think I’m paying for a Mac (which by the way, if you do the math you will find out that the “premium” doesn’t really exist and that Macs are competetively priced), the customer service more than makes up for it.
February 27, 2008, 8:33pm
