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August 20, 2007

Speaking Of The Other Guys

I spoke kindly of Apple's customer service (eventually), now I need to mention the opposite.

Two weeks ago, I purchased two garage door openers for the two garage doors of my new house. I paid slightly more for installation than I did for the hardware.

The installers called 2 days later, said they'd come in 3 days and would call first.

Three days later, cell phone in hand all day, and nothing. Eventually, I got a call that claimed they'd called 3 times earlier in the day but gotten no answer and left no message. And also left no trace of a missed call on my phone, which means they probably didn't call. They re-scheduled for today, late (as they'll be an hour and a bit away on another job in Keene, NH, most of the day).

Today, they call at 8 AM and ask if morning is OK (what happened to the job in Keene, I don't know). I say it is. Two hours later, they show up, look at the garage for 5 minutes, and decide there's a problem. No place to anchor the header of the garage door opener. Or, rather, there is a place, but it would require cutting and attaching a heavy piece of wood where there's currently just a gap. Relatively easy carpentry, they agree.

But a call to their boss results in them saying they can't do it. The boss won't allow them to do carpentry as part of a simple install job, and claims its a liability risk (which it might well be).

They call back to the retailer who contracted them, who says they'll find another installer to take a look. But they also tell me there is no other installer in southern NH.

So they leave me their card, some fairly hollow apologies, and two garage door openers still in their boxes.

Not the happy experience dealing with Apple provided.

Posted by ghoul at 06:42 PM | Comments (0)

August 18, 2007

Apple Vs. Other Guys

OK, let's imagine something.

Let's imagine you bought something three years ago. And, just two week or so back, it went belly up.

Let's say it's a tower computer. A really nice dual processor beauty. And let's say the power supply gave out, to the point that it started leaking nasty, oily fluid all over the place.

Now, let's say you take it to the company's store, tell them it's under warranty, and they promise to fix it.

And let's say that, after two weeks' effort and 2-3 replacements of pretty much every part, they can't manage it.

So... what do they do?

Well, I can tell you what Apple Computer does. They say "Sorry, we can't fix your G5 tower. So, come in tomorrow and we'll swap it out for a new MacPro dual Intel processor tower with as similar features as we can (i.e., the same RAM, a slightly larger HD, 2 extra drive bays for future use, and about 2-3 times the speed). Oh, and we'll port over all your data first, so that's taken care of."

How many other guys are going to do that for you?

Lesson of the story: not all warranties are worth the cost, but AppleCare pretty much is. I stopped on the way out from picking up the new tower to purchase coverage on the new machine.

Posted by ghoul at 02:58 PM | Comments (2)