What follows began as a reply to a post on Michael’s blog. If you haven’t signed up for Michael’s feed, you should. He posts some great stuff — and, if you don’t know already, he is also the lead developer of K2, the Wordpress platform on which this site is built.
What follows ended up as a post (rather than a comment), because Michael thinks that I am too wordy — and, as a comment, I am sure this would have been another case in point — and probably moderated out of existence.
There are lots of folks that like to bash Apple service.
I have not been one of them.
However, there does seem to be a “night and day” difference in an Apple Store (specifically at the Genius Bar) between being a ProCare member and not being a ProCare member.
In the last few weeks I needed to take my Mom’s shiny new MacBook Pro in for warranty service to get a faulty optical drive swapped out. I walked into the store with the expectation of handing over Mom’s computer after filling out some paperwork and waiting the requisite 14 days for Apple to mail it to (and from) who knows where. Instead what I got was the following:
THEM: Do you have an appointment?
ME: No. I don’t want an appointment, I want to turn this computer in for warranty service.
THEM: Let me just take you over here to get an appointment with a Genius.
ME: How long will that take?
THEM: The next appointment is in 2.5 hrs.
ME: Why do I need to talk to a Genius? Aren’t you qualified to hand me a piece of paper to fill out where I can ask for warranty service?
THEM: You really need to speak with a Genius. {As if they have the secret warranty forms / decoder ring filed away in some password protected site}
ME: OK, can we flag one down when he is between appointments?
THEM: No. The Geniuses only speak with people that have appointments. {As if people without appointments carry with them some infectious disease.}
We leave — yes, my Mom was with me to see this great spectacle.
So I return to work and walked into the office of someone more “Apple” nazi-ish than I and relayed the above. He grinned. “You don’t have an Apple ProCare Card do you?”
Later that day I got one. The next day I had an appointment with a Genius in a different store. Within thirty seconds, he came to the same conclusion that I came to. The computer needs a new optical drive.
What he said next floored me. “I’ll have it done in 24 to 48 hours.” By the time I got home, there was a message on the answering machine….”This is the Apple Store, your MacBook Pro is ready, please pick it up at your convenience, and thank you for your business.”
So what started with “you have to wait 2.5 hours to have someone mail your computer to some offsite service center and endure a 14 day process”, ended up with “you can have any appointment you want, we will fix it on site, promise it to you within 48 hours and actually deliver it to you within 2 hours”.
ProCare costs $99/year. I think that it has already paid for itself.
But what’s interesting was my Mom’s reaction…”If you buy one of their computers, you shouldn’t have to spend another $99 for good service.”
Mom is still bitter about the first experience.
Now, Apple hasn’t lost a customer (I won’t help my Mom anymore if she buys a Windows machine and she knows it), but Apple may have lost an evangelist. Certainly for Mom, some of the luster has come off of the ol’ Apple, And that’s too bad. Mom has been a great evangelist for them over the past many years.
It seems that the converse of what Michael says is also true “Crappy Service = UnHappy Customer.”
I would never have moderated this as a comment; I only ‘moderate’ (=delete) spam and stupidity, and this is neither. That said, I do think this belongs on your site more than it belongs in my comment section, simply because it’s a good entry.
We don’t have any official Apple Stores in Denmark, so I don’t have any experience with them; hell I don’t even know what a procard is, but I do know that the 4-5 times I have to do business with Apple Support over the phone it’s been a pleasure (insofar as phone support is ever a ‘pleasure’).
I know that the whole making appointments thing does get nerve racking and it seems as though just filling out info and handing someone a computer would seem easier for you it is not. And this is why it is not. If you were to fill out a form with anything that didn’t match the correct information linked with that particular computer that would delay it getting fixed, the computer parts that would need ordered would not be ordered until someone could have time to set up a repair for this computer and order the proper parts, Which would mean after the appointments and repairs that needed done that day were fulfilled. They would also have to diagnose the problem to be 100% sure that is the problem. If they shipped it off or didn’t ship it off and did the repair in store the parts that wouldn’t fix the problem would delay your repair time. They also want to make sure that you have signed and agreed to their terms and conditions. When you sign up for an appointment this allows the Genius to see the computer do what you think it is doing and diagnose the problem as well as make sure that the computer is actually registered and that the information linked with the computer is correct. Everyone that comes into the store would probably love to just drop off their computers without having to wait but the reality is this would not help your computer get fixed any faster.
Anon: You do have a good point, but I notice that when I take my wife’s Audi into the repair shop for warranty service, I do not order parts or diagnose the problem myself. I simply describe the symptoms, they take the car (thankfully for something less than 14 days), diagnose it, order the parts and fix it…and many times I get this service without an appointment…and all this from an auto repair shop — it isn’t even the dealership.
I am not opposed to waiting in line. And if speaking with a Mac Mechanic were required (perhaps to avoid shipping costs for issues that are truly user error), it would be nice if the Apple Store devoted at least 25% of its geniuses to the folks standing around in front of the genius bar — you know, the old fashioned “take a number” routine. Then if I didn’t have Procare or didn’t have an appointment, I could take a number (and assuredly wait less than 2.5 hours).
1. The appointment system is in place to give everyone an equal chance at the same level of service at the bar.
2. ProCare is a paid set of benefits, and fast-track check-in for repairs (without waiting for an appointment) is one of those benefits; priority repairs is another. Sort of a pass to “cut to the front of the line,” as it were.
3. The Geniuses in the store are uniquely qualified to determine if a repair can be done in-house or if it will require dispatch to a specialized facility.
In the experience you described, ProCare entitled you to cut to the front of the repair line, ahead of non-ProCare members, thus expediting your repair. If the store had multiple repairs in ahead of yours, and you were not a ProCare member, yours would have fallen in line with the others. It would still have been necessary for a Genius to diagnose the issue to determine what sort of repair and turnaround you could expect, ProCare or not…but with ProCare, you can simply check the machine in to have it evaluated and they’d get back to you. Making that second appointment ahead of time saved you some time, but that had little or nothing to do with being a ProCare customer.
The appointment system at the Genius Bar *is* a ‘take a number’ system — it’s just that many people ‘take their number’ from home and sign up on the store’s website ahead of time. Everyone has the ability to sign up for an appointment on the same day (starting at Midnight local time) at the store’s website or in the store, but ProCare members can schedule up to 2 weeks in advance.
Glad to hear you got taken care of, and glad to hear you have a better idea of what to expect next time.
Anon Genius:
Thanks for the comment.
I would like some of the reservation slots to be only available to those that sign up in the store…even better I would like a “line” for those that are willing to wait in line — and the genius on the line would only help out with the “reservation system customers” if the line was fully serviced.
But that is what I would *like.* And that’s based on my Mom’s experience — and I beleive that there are lots of folks like her that would never have known about the reservation system until they hit the store floor and then never come back after having been treated like so much cattle.
Don’t get me wrong…I am now a ProCare Member…my proposal would “hurt” my ability to get reservations…but I want those like my Mom to have a good experience with Apple as well….I am not the future of Apple…people like her are.
On the comment that the geniuses need to determine whether the repair can or cannot be handled in house…thanks for the insight…it would never had occurred to me that non-Pro Care Members could have received “in-house” repair privaleges (on any schedule).
Anyway, thanks for the comment….it is greatly appreciated.
what is Apple Care protection plan for, then? I was sent to the store for some ‘free’ service by the APP phone guy and arrived to find the genius bar (no snide quotation marks even needed) a pre-teenage wasteland overrrun with 12-year olds who can’t mount their Ipods accompanied by a pushy Mom demanding junior’s $279 value. ‘Free’ service meant touching me for another $99 just to drop off my clunky 17-inch Imac G5 for an archived rebuild.
Enough of the ‘equal chance’ at speaking with a genius – people with real work to do on their macs need to be treated more equally.
OK, wow, can I take it all back? I received my computer back and fixed (archived rebuild of desktop) in one day and it was upgraded to Tiger ($79 value, may I remind you?) – and I still have 364 days of Procare coverage with all the bells and whistles.
Wow.
Miffed: I am glad that it all worked out.
I just purchased ProCare because my MBP needed emergency repair. If it had to be sent off for repair, I was ready to purchase brand new one. The suggested that I buy ProCare instead. I did, and they said they’d have it ready for me by morning.
I am actually not impressed. I don’t care for what feels like a bribe for better service. It’s a turn-off to me to feel like I’m jumping ahead of people in line.
Lillian:
Interesting that you liken this to a bribe. Yes, you are right that even without paying for ProCare you can get your MBP serviced and that paying the “bribe” gets it serviced faster. But isn’t that the way with everything? If I want a MacBook, it costs one price. If I want a MacBook Pro, it costs more. If I fly a particular airline I can wait in the normal lounge for no extra charge. If I pay for a first class seat (or pay to become a member of the Ambassador’s Club — or whatever that airline’s club is called) I can wait in a special private lounge where newspapers, an soft drinks and snacks are free. Is this really any different.
Let’s flip it around to the expense side. Perhaps you could view it as all of us ProCare participants paying for another body at the genius bar. The quid pro quo for paying for that extra person is that we (the payors of his/her salary) get an expedited share of his/her time. I don’t know if this is really what’s going on but it certainly can be looked at that way.
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