I thought I'd share a small anecdote about Apple's customer service.
Last weekend, we had some friends who were staying with us that were visiting from out of the country (Australia). My buddy has an iPhone 4 and when he was showing me something on it, I noticed that the Home Button was not responsive. He said it's been like that since he got it and has to push it a certain way to get it to respond.
He lives kind of far from an Apple Store and his carrier in Australia isn't the greatest for hardware support, so while he was here we decided to take him to the Apple Store to get it checked out. We booked the appointment for a Saturday morning.
When we got there, the store was unsurprisingly packed and there was a line outside for the iPhone 4S. We were seen approximately 5-10min after our scheduled appointment time, no doubt because of how busy the store was.
The genius took one look at his phone and apologized for the problem, said it was definitely defective. When he asked my friend how long it was like this, the response he was given was interesting. "No, it shouldn't have been like this at all. Your iPhone is about 4 days outside of warranty but that's ok, we'll replace it for you anyway. We want you to enjoy your iPhone." About 10min later, a replacement iPhone was given to him right on the spot, the guy even took the time to clean his case for him.
We had some difficulty getting the activation to go through because his iPhone was on another carrier. We were told it could take up to an hour for the "unlock" to trickle down (presumably because of all the activations going on) so we were given a business card and asked to return in an hour (go grab lunch!) to try restoring the iPhone at one of their terminals.
When we returned an hour later, the iPhone activation went through without a hitch.
In conclusion: Apple replaced an out-of-warranty iPhone without any hassle. I realize this was outside of the norm but the level of service was just really, really great. My buddy was flummoxed that they would take the time to make sure everything was correctly set up. He "iMessaged" me from his hotel that night to say, "I still can't believe they replaced my iPhone...that was pretty cool."
Nice job, Apple.
Last weekend, we had some friends who were staying with us that were visiting from out of the country (Australia). My buddy has an iPhone 4 and when he was showing me something on it, I noticed that the Home Button was not responsive. He said it's been like that since he got it and has to push it a certain way to get it to respond.
He lives kind of far from an Apple Store and his carrier in Australia isn't the greatest for hardware support, so while he was here we decided to take him to the Apple Store to get it checked out. We booked the appointment for a Saturday morning.
When we got there, the store was unsurprisingly packed and there was a line outside for the iPhone 4S. We were seen approximately 5-10min after our scheduled appointment time, no doubt because of how busy the store was.
The genius took one look at his phone and apologized for the problem, said it was definitely defective. When he asked my friend how long it was like this, the response he was given was interesting. "No, it shouldn't have been like this at all. Your iPhone is about 4 days outside of warranty but that's ok, we'll replace it for you anyway. We want you to enjoy your iPhone." About 10min later, a replacement iPhone was given to him right on the spot, the guy even took the time to clean his case for him.
We had some difficulty getting the activation to go through because his iPhone was on another carrier. We were told it could take up to an hour for the "unlock" to trickle down (presumably because of all the activations going on) so we were given a business card and asked to return in an hour (go grab lunch!) to try restoring the iPhone at one of their terminals.
When we returned an hour later, the iPhone activation went through without a hitch.
In conclusion: Apple replaced an out-of-warranty iPhone without any hassle. I realize this was outside of the norm but the level of service was just really, really great. My buddy was flummoxed that they would take the time to make sure everything was correctly set up. He "iMessaged" me from his hotel that night to say, "I still can't believe they replaced my iPhone...that was pretty cool."
Nice job, Apple.
