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Kudos apple

J

jybute

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 17, 2008
16
0
A few weeks ago, I dropped my iPhone. As I'm sure you can imagine, the glass shattered. With my lower lip trembling, I went online to search for a solution to my big problem. I discovered that the cheapest way to fix this was to buy a new glass face and install myself for around $100. Not feeling confident in my iPhone repair skills I called the only apple store we have in my city. They told me for around $250 they would exchange the phone for a refurbished one. I settled on this option.

Not wanting to spend the money at the time, I put it off until last night.

I went into the apple store with the full intention of shelling out $250. After talking with the "genius" behind the counter for a few minutes, recounting for him what I had done. He, out of nowhere told me they would exhange the phone for me free of charge for a brand new one. I have to say, this changed my view of apple completely. I had seen nothing from them before to make me think that they took care of there costumers like this. All the ads on TV with the apple guy and the pc guy just gave me the idea of another advertising gimick.

Being a pc guy, I will have to seriously reconsider my next computer purchase.

And kudos to apple, you won me over.
 
They won you over in a completely wrong way. I'm shocked that genius hasn't been fired.
 
That's one of the things I like about Apple, their customer service. I know that I can take my ipod, iphone, or mac into their store and they will have time for me and won't try to fight with me. I remember with my old ipod video, it was out of warranty and wouldn't turn on, took it into the apple store and they gave me a brand new one.
 
nickspohn said:
They won you over in a completely wrong way. I'm shocked that genius hasn't been fired.
Click to expand...
Here's a thought. Could it be that employees at Apple are human beings and approaching then with honesty and humility might result in getting better service?

Now I don't know you but based on this one post, I would guess that you would probably receive poor service anywhere. You sound like you have a sense of entitlement which is a sure way to turn people off from helping you quickly.

@nikhsub1: Maybe it's how you approached them on the matter. Speaking from experience, charm can get you all sorts of free things. I would get free drinks at Starbucks all the time from the girls working there.
 
aristotle said:
Here's a thought. Could it be that employees at Apple are human beings and approaching then with honesty and humility might result in getting better service?

Now I don't know you but based on this one post, I would guess that you would probably receive poor service anywhere. You sound like you have a sense of entitlement which is a sure way to turn people off from helping you quickly.
Click to expand...

Approaching them with honesty? You mean, why do i deserve a FREE PHONE WHEN I SHATTERED MY OWN PHONE.

It's one thing when my phone has an issue and i take it and get it replaced, but this is almost as good as: "Apple, i dropped my phone in a toilet. It doesn't work. Thanks for giving me a free new one because i'm a retard".

You can say I'm bitter, you can say I'm an ass, but getting something free for being careless is a joke.
 
nickspohn said:
Approaching them with honesty? You mean, why do i deserve a FREE PHONE WHEN I SHATTERED MY OWN PHONE.

It's one thing when my phone has an issue and i take it and get it replaced, but this is almost as good as: "Apple, i dropped my phone in a toilet. It doesn't work. Thanks for giving me a free new one because i'm a retard".

You can say I'm bitter, you can say I'm an ass, but getting something free for being careless is a joke.
Click to expand...
Try letting go of your disappointment and not coveting what other people have or receive. Has everyone forgotten the golden rule? If you were to treat the staff at the Apple store the way you would want to be treated, you might get good service.

Let go of the past and move on.
 
aristotle said:
Try letting go of your disappointment and not coveting what other people have or receive. Has everyone forgotten the golden rule? If you were to treat the staff at the Apple store the way you would want to be treated, you might get good service.

Let go of the past and move on.
Click to expand...

The golden rule? Coveting? Let go of the past?

I didn't know I had to be nice to break the rules. Sorry, but If i treat the employee nice, he shouldn't be giving out a free phone JUST BECAUSE i treated him nice. It's not fair to the people that had to pay for their mistakes. Now this guy is won over because he gets a free iPhone because he can't handle his first iPhone. Boy, I wish everything in life was like that.
 
My friend exchanged a jailbroken phone without even doing a restore and they only checked for the water thing and they gave him a new one. The guy didnt know what kailbroken was or they dint check it up.
 
To the OP - that's very cool, must have been your lucky day.

To everyone else - what's the big deal? He said he went in there with all intentions of shelling out the $250, so what did he do wrong? It doesn't sound like he lied or otherwise coerced the genius to give him free junk.

I went into my bank one time to figure out why I had 3 overdraft fees(when I was younger and didn't fully understand what had happened) and the guy that helped me refunded them. I went in there just to talk to an employee and get a print out, simply out of curiousity, and he refunded $90 worth of refunds. Sometimes, employees just do cool stuff and can seriously help people out.
 
ddeadserious said:
To the OP - that's very cool, must have been your lucky day.

To everyone else - what's the big deal? He said he went in there with all intentions of shelling out the $250, so what did he do wrong? It doesn't sound like he lied or otherwise coerced the genius to give him free junk.

I went into my bank one time to figure out why I had 3 overdraft fees(when I was younger and didn't fully understand what had happened) and the guy that helped me refunded them. I went in there just to talk to an employee and get a print out, simply out of curiousity, and he refunded $90 worth of refunds. Sometimes, employees just do cool stuff and can seriously help people out.
Click to expand...

That is a fee. It has no value. The bank isn't really losing money off that.
 
nickspohn said:
They won you over in a completely wrong way. I'm shocked that genius hasn't been fired.
Click to expand...

You don't know what you're talking about. Whether you're charged for a repair or not is solely at the discretion of the genius. Yes, they will usually charge folks for repairs caused by physical damage, but they aren't required to. Once and awhile, a customer will get lucky.
 
Chris Welch said:
You don't know what you're talking about. Whether you're charged for a repair or not is solely at the discretion of the genius. Yes, they will usually charge folks for repairs caused by physical damage, but they aren't required to. Once and awhile, a customer will get lucky.
Click to expand...

like i did (heres my thread with my scenario)

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/588361/

in short, my dad got a free logic board repair even though his mbp was out of warranty and i got a free batt replacement on my mb which was also out of warranty
 
Apple has every right to replace any of their products for any reason they want. Getting down on the OP because Apple gave him a replacement for cosmetic damages is just sour grapes.

It was an extremely smart business move. A small cost to them in the short term for potential future sales of thousands is always a smart thing to do. Now they have not only provide excellent service to the OP, they have also planted the seed for the switch to Mac. Creating a lifetime customer and promoter is easily worth the cost of a replacement iPhone.
 
Mikey B said:
Apple has every right to replace any of their products for any reason they want. Getting down on the OP because Apple gave him a replacement for cosmetic damages is just sour grapes.

It was an extremely smart business move. A small cost to them in the short term for potential future sales of thousands is always a smart thing to do. Now they have not only provide excellent service to the OP, they have also planted the seed for the switch to Mac. Creating a lifetime customer and promoter is easily worth the cost of a replacement iPhone.
Click to expand...

agreed.. they reserve the right to do it at any time.. And doing it this time won not only a customer, but it has made it to one of the largest mac boards and is being discussed by us... i believe it worked.
 
bartelby said:
Wow this thread is full of sour grapes!
Click to expand...

Okay, when i careless trash my objects, I'm going to try the best I can to get a free iPhone in return.


Seriously, this amazes me. Yeah everyone's happy he got a free phone, lets all hold hands, but he didn't get one for the right reason, and I'm standing by that. There have been other people that dropped their phone, and they had to pay the price. That's not fair. Did he learn his lesson about dropping a glass phone again? Hopefully since it didn't cost him anything, but i've dealt with over 20 iPhones, and have 3 of my own, and to this day, I have never dropped 1. I work out with it, I carry it everywhere I go, wherever I go, my iPhone goes, and amazingly it has never dropped yet.
 
nickspohn said:
Seriously, this amazes me. Yeah everyone's happy he got a free phone, lets all hold hands, but he didn't get one for the right reason, and I'm standing by that.
Click to expand...

Well you can stand by whatever you want.

The point is the Apple employee decided it was a right reason and gave the OP a new phone and that's all there is to it.
No amount of stamping your feet will change that.
If you dropped your phone and got a free replacement you'd also post on here about it.
 
aristotle said:
Here's a thought. Could it be that employees at Apple are human beings and approaching then with honesty and humility might result in getting better service?
Click to expand...

I actually would reject that option. :p

Apple has been doing a limited number of courtesy replacements ever since they had the original fiasco with the first iPhone of having pre-release reviewers complain that it would break easily if dropped, and was too expensive for that to be justified. Then, Apple tempered the glass and told the press that it would make it fairly difficult to break. When people still found a way to break it, it was in Apple's interest to keep them from creating a negative buzz by humoring them. Good business sense, since making a completely unbreakable iPhone isn't very feasible.

Besides that, Apple and AT&T profit from your iPhone based on not only your purchase price but your projected contract expenditures over two years. Two years of a $100/mo contract is a lot more revenue than the sale price of the iPhone. So it is worth it to them to some extent.

OTOH, you could argue that it was a waste of a courtesy on a user who was prepared to pay, vs. a better investment with another user who would not have paid and would've gone to a lesser phone, and dropped their AT&T contract to one that cost a lot less / month, actually eating into AT&T/APple revenues. :eek:
 
bartelby said:
Well you can stand by whatever you want.

The point is the Apple employee decided it was a right reason and gave the OP a new phone and that's all there is to it.
No amount of stamping your feet will change that.
If you dropped your phone and got a free replacement you'd also post on here about it.
Click to expand...

You're telling me what I would post?

Sorry,

1) I'm not going to drop my iPhone. I guess I'm just careful? Or is it luck.
2) If i break my iPhone, I'll pay to get it fixed. I won't learn my lesson if i get a free one for being careless.

All the people that have had to pay because of their mistakes agree with me.
 
nickspohn said:
You're telling me what I would post?

Sorry,

1) I'm not going to drop my iPhone. I guess I'm just careful? Or is it luck.
2) If i break my iPhone, I'll pay to get it fixed. I won't learn my lesson if i get a free one for being careless.

All the people that have had to pay because of their mistakes agree with me.
Click to expand...


Whatever.
:rolleyes:
Still sour grapes.
 
bartelby said:
Whatever.
:rolleyes:
Still sour grapes.
Click to expand...

Yes, I like sour grapes, but I guess I'm just a fair kind of person. A company should treat it's customers the same, not giving some people benefits, and others "grief". It just isn't fair.
 
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