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All Taken

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Dec 28, 2009
780
1
UK
Just a hit back at the many stories of late that Apple is losing its long held customer centric philosophy....

I purchased a launch day rMBP base model with the standard 8GB ram and loved the machine from the moment I opened the box. Sadly it suffered from image retention (LG screen) and needed to see Apple. Note my model was fine until early August, it does take time for the screen to develop the retention issue and it was highly visible come August, after about 30 seconds of a window being opened.

Let me point out that I've been an Apple customer for a fair few years and know that they make mass produced products, problems are expected and you should not expect perfection from every product made.

I gave Apple a call early August to get a repair, they immediately offered a replacement instead (even though it was from an authorised reseller!). I gladly accepted and thought I would be a bit cheeky and ask if I could have a memory upgrade on the replacement as I found 8GB was limiting for VM work. Apple accomodated this and I gladly gave them my card details for the £160 increase in cost.

The replacement order was set up and an appointed contact in Apple was given to me to liaise with. I happily waited but recieved a call a few days after the replacement was set-up to be told that my custom build (base retina plus 16GB Ram) would be delayed for 7-10 days as builds were back logged, I was fine with this as the way I see it I was recieving a brand new unit with new warranty, all sealed etc.

Apple disagreed and said they had removed my card details from the order and I will not be charged for the memory upgrade on the replacement!! £160 saved and I didn't even have to ask, I was happy even with a delay and paying for the memory. Brand new unit vs repair? No brainer.

I received my new unit today and it is a Samsung screen with the promised 16GB of ram, no image retention (time will tell but it looks as though LG screens, some not all, are the affected batch). It is perfect.

I gave Apple a call this afternoon to thank them for such a pleasent experience and for giving me a free memory upgrade, before I could get this in the gentleman from Customer Relations piped 'I'm ever so sorry your replacement order was delayed by 2 days outside of the estimate given'. I must say a 2 day delay (12 days instead of 7-10) is perfectly acceptable to me.

Apple thought that I deserved some sort of 'appeasement' for my 'trouble' :eek:

They gave me a choice of any Apple product bar, software from the App store, iTunes vouchers and no Apple TV (Guessing margin related?)

My wife has wanted an iPod Touch for a while and I let her talk to the gent, he was more than happy to give her (me) an iPod Touch, even offered engraving :rolleyes: she should be so lucky. He exclaimed that if I have any issues what so ever, Apple will help every step of the way.

Now, i'm far from a 'fanboy', I'm a Macbook user of many years and have always considered Apple to have above average customer support, but to give a free memory upgrade and an iPod touch (£329!) for a faulty product and a 2 day delay is astonishing.

A replacement was more than appeasement enough (new warranty etc), I was happy to pay for a memory upgrade and loved that Apple were flexible to allow that during replacement, but no, Apple went all out by any service standard.

The latest 'corporation boo' and 'Steve Jobs would have never allowed this' speeches are astonishing in light of what I have witnessed.

Thanks for reading.
 

mzjin

macrumors 6502
Oct 28, 2011
412
0
I think the stories are mostly focused around the Retail Customer Service experience, as it tends to be the most important aspect.

The strength of having Apple products is that if it fails, you can always drive to your local Apple store and it will replaced or repaired on the spot.
 

theBostonian

Suspended
Apr 15, 2012
317
238
I'm a convert too, from being a rather cynical mac convert a year ago.

From my experiences (mainly with the telephone staff as opposed to retail) I think I'll be sticking with Apple for quite some time!
 

MaulRx

Suspended
Aug 27, 2012
578
646
I've never had a bad experience with Apple customer service. They've even replaced\repaired products well outside the warranty period for little to no charge.
 

BB.King

macrumors regular
Jun 29, 2012
199
42
London UK
I ordered two retina macbooks the day after the announcement, both arrived two days after Apple's 5 weeks estimate. At the same time there was lot of people who order over 1 week after me received their retina well before I did, guess I should have phoned up and complaint.

As for their customer service, I'm not a fan of taking the machine to Apple store. I had to take my retina for a Genius appointment on Tuesday, end up taking half of day off work. Personally I'd prefer Apple send a courier to pickup the laptop and send it back after fixing it. Even better, have next day on-sit service like Lenovo Thinkpad machines.
 

polotska

macrumors 6502
Sep 23, 2007
257
1
As for their customer service, I'm not a fan of taking the machine to Apple store. I had to take my retina for a Genius appointment on Tuesday, end up spending 1:30 hrs there. Personally I'd prefer Apple send a courier to pickup the laptop and send it back after fixing it. Even better, have next day on-sit service like Lenovo Thinkpad machines.

Agree with you there—haven’t really had any problems with Apple service, and they do still offer mail-in service for many notebook issues, but Lenovo’s ThinkPad service is exceptional in my experience.

Just had to get a MacBook Air power adapter replaced. Spoke with AppleCare on the telephone in the hopes that they would send a replacement, but no dice—referred me to an Apple Store. No issues with the service at the store—replaced it without incident—but would have been nice if I hadn’t had to make the trip. It’s not like they did any further testing of the issue at the store—just gave them my case number, explained what was going on, and they replaced the power adapter.
 
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