Customer care, what customer care!

[wjb]

Having used PC’s for the past 15 years and always a frustrated Macintosh user I decided to let the boat out and purchase a Mac for a university course. I have always been impressed with the aesthetics, ease of use and the customer service (I obviously didn’t look too hard).

I went to a reputable company, CW Online, and they provided me with useful, intelligent advise on which machine I would require for my needs (believe it or not they did not advise me to purchase the most expensive machine; in fact they suggested I purchased the cheapest machine!)

Having taken delivery I was impressed with how soon I got into Macintosh speak. It did take a little bit of time to get used to the command and apple key but everything else was very intuitive. Having loaded the pre-supplied software a couple of times and updated the OS, via the web, I was ready for my course.

Having had the machine for two weeks the DVD/CDRW drive kept ejecting my cd’s and DVD’s. I called the support line and after 1.5 hours of resetting and putting disks in, only for them to be spat back out again, the technician (if that is the right word) decided it needed to be sent back. The date now was the 29 Dec 03.

The machine was picked up on the 2 Jan 04 and I believed (stupidly) that it would be back and ready for action within 2 weeks. The couple of weeks passed by and still no word from Apple or a machine. I rang the customer services number and was told that they were waiting for a bit! A bit I thought, ok I will leave if for a few days, how long can it take a bit to be delivered from the US. Another week passed and again no phone call or anything to explain where my £1000 computer was. The next time I tried to ring I was on hold for over an hour and I finally gave up waiting. The story goes on and on.

It has now been 4 weeks and I am now demanding from CW online that they either:
• Get my machine back within the next couple of days (very unlikely).
• Give me a full refund, or
• Give me a new ibook.
This course of action is not what I would have wanted because, as I have said before, CW online provided me with great customer service, not just before I purchased the machine, but during this whole episode.
The main gripes I have with apple are:
• If they have to delay a item for return then why don’t they inform the customer?
• Why do I have pay a phone charge when they are holding my goods?
• WHAT do Apple consider a normal repair time? I have paid a £1000 for a machine to do my university work on and now I am 4 weeks behind.

 

[Edot]

CW

Sorry about the situation. Are you mad at Apple or CW? It seems like the reseller is the problem here. I believe you could have called Apple directly and received support without going through CW. However, if your iBook requires repairs you may have to send it to Apple or another service center.

 

[wjb]

Sorry I wrote the above article in a very agitated state. The ibook went back to Apple straight away, CW were not involved at all. I ahve spent approx 12 hours either talking to or waiting for Apple staff! CW online have been great throughout. I rang them and told them the problems I was having Apple and their customer support team were on the case straight away. Even they could not get a straight answer about what was taking so long.

 

[oldschool]

Next time you phone, speak to a supervisor, and then from there tell him your problem and that you wish to be compensated...just to shake things up...also tell them that you want you computer replaced not repaired.

Then go talk to customer service, and if the person in customer service agrees with you then get them to go talk to the tech rep WITH you on the line. Basically just work on the problem.


Oh, and tell THEM to phone you back as soon as you phone that way you don't pay for the call.