Never piss off a 12-year-old

Ian: it’s Patrick’s computer. He can stand up for himself. That’s a valuable life lesson too that daddy ain’t gonna always be there for him. But if he were at Best Buy, he could have pointed to the return policy on the wall. I didn’t see any such return policy posted at Apple stores.

I think you are being too hard on Apple. First, Apple generally is pretty quick about fixing problems that are under warranty. When it had to switch out a logic board on an old iBook it took three days. I also had it overnight me repairs for minor things like a faulty keyboard. I think the speed of resolution depends on the problem, and the person your dealing with. Complicated problems take longer.

Second, from Apple’s perspective, at least over the phone, it has no idea if what you are saying is correct. Often if you go into an Apple store, you get assistance immediately. Also, if you think one Apple representative is not assisting you properly, ask for a manager. Sometimes, that gets resolution quicker.

After-all, you are dealing with people, and people are not always good company representatives.

Since you weren’t there, Robert, it’s hard to know exactly how the interaction went down. Is it possible that Patrick went in with some attitude, and that as a result the store employees weren’t as forthcoming with alternatives?

For what it’s worth, the Apple Store here in Rochester _did_ replace Lane’s MacBook with a new one when we had trouble, which I blogged about.

Liz: it’s quite possible. And if that were true, then that’s a valuable lesson he will learn too: that you get more by being nice than by being a jerk.

But, on the other side of the fence, in Best Buy (or Fry’s, or Costco) even a jerk can return stuff: all they need to do is point to the policy on the wall.

Terrin:

>Often if you go into an Apple store, you get assistance immediately.

They did give him assistance immediately. That wasn’t the problem. The problem was that he wasn’t treated as well as BestBuy or Fry’s or Costco would have treated him.

You let him handle it himself is a good way to teach him a great lesson, well, other than posting about it endlessly on your site. So when it is resolved because someone at Apple wises up to the greasy wheel will he really be the one that fixed his own problem? I’m sure that he’ll learn from your example soon enough. The blogger who throws the biggest tantrum will get the best customer service. Just realize it’s special treatment and is no way indicative of the real world. Apparently being an “A List” blogger is very similar to being a 3 year old. Fall to the ground and flail until you get what you want. Kudos to you.

Aaron: and, what happens if Apple changes its return policy for EVERYONE to be the same as BestBuy or Costco cause they realize they are pissing off their best customers?

I really don’t expect to get anyone from Apple listening to me. They haven’t demonstrated they listen to anyone but Steven Levy from Newsweek or Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal.

Oh, and you might try a little squeek yourself sometime! Everyone can use blog search engines. Maybe if hundreds of us complained we’d get attention?

Did you ask for a replacement or did you ask to get this particular MBP repaired?

Jake: my son just wanted the problem to be fixed. He didn’t care about how.

Robert writes: “But, he’s still 12 and still thinks Steve Jobs is God.”

You don’t have to be a young person to appreciate Steve Jobs. Even the engineers and management at Microsoft acknowledge the man’s genius. The comment though comes off a bit put-offish implying people use Macs for superficial and immature reasons. Maybe you didn’t mean it that way.

I don’t know what to say to a young person with an infatuation. I do know that if it were me, I’d be embarrassed to have it discussed in public in this way.

This is very personal topic. I would love to connect with my son someday on something like computers. Maybe you would too. Of course that can only happen by being open to each other (mostly from the adult, i.e. you). On the other hand, if a strong will is the desired trait, then your son is fine. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree after all.

HG: yeah, he gets embarrassed sometimes by the public stature of our family. He’s still pissed that he got kicked out of Second Life (most of his friends still are there, the only reason he got booted was cause he played in public). But, that’s an important lesson for him to learn too.

And, learning to deal with criticism for one’s beliefs is an important lesson too. I’m very proud of his ability to stand up for himself, though.

But, what I get on him about is religious belief in a company or a guy. That won’t serve him well in the world because it’ll keep him from looking for a better way to do things. It’ll also let him down, as he found out this week. Better to have a little cynicism.

Note that I too admire Steve Jobs. He has skills I never will have. The way he talked IBM out of $400 million without having a product in hand (when he started NeXT) was sheer genius and balls.

And, last time I looked I hadn’t started one of the world’s great companies.

Robert, you’re correct – even one adverse connection with Apple is one too many from a customer satisfaction viewpoint.
You weren’t there so your comments are as third-hand as many above. Maybe Apple are retaining Books with specific problems in order to determine the scale of the issue? Maybe the store didn’t have a Book to replace or lend? Maybe the Apple Store employee explained more but it got lost in the retelling of the story? Most likely the frailty of humans was at play and this person made a boo-boo by not offering all the options to Patrick.
Most likely you yourself was at fault for letting Patrick deal with this solely on his own – you love your son, he loves Apple stuff, so why didn’t you just go into the Apple Store with him to make sure he got the best possible result? And I seem to remember that you have a close relative who works at Apple? Mmm!

TC: I was in the store, but not at the counter. He kept coming over and telling me what was up and I kept sending him back over to deal with the help there.

If it were only my story, I’d probably let it slide. But Dave WIner has been pointing to various people having shutdown problems (and getting the “you gotta give us your computer for two weeks” line) for months now. Do you want me to point to all of them?

Do you find it interesting that a guy started an entire Web site to track this problem? I do.

Do you find it interesting that Best Buy and Costco treat their customers better than Apple does? I do.

Do you find it interesting that the mainstream press will beat up Dell for customer service issues, but I haven’t seen much about Apple in that same press? I do.

” I was in the store, but not at the counter. He kept coming over and telling me what was up and I kept sending him back over to deal with the help there.”

I’m not an apologist for Apple – I thought my opening comment made that clear.

If you were actually in the store why couldn’t you drag yourself over to the Genius Bar and support Patrick? Wasn’t that the responsible parent thing to do with a minor in any store?

Anecdotal evidence of customer service may be accurate – or not – but it just doesn’t matter whether Best Buy or CostCo is better it is what happens when you need service that matters and you could have influenced the outcome for Patrick – but didn’t.

“Do you find it interesting that a guy started an entire Web site to track this problem? I do.” Well, doesn’t this sort of thing go on a lot these days for all sorts of people who feel aggrieved that something they’ve acquired isn’t perfect in every way? Winer may be entirely correct in highlighting an Apple approach that doesn’t measure up. I’m sure he’s contacted Apple and had the brush-off as a no-nothing, unknown on the Internet!

Influence is a wonderful thing. And what happened with that relative at Apple in helping to get to the bottom of the problem?

TC: he bought his own computer without my help and I didn’t see that he needed my help at the counter. He didn’t ask for it.

My relative is an engineer on the Mac team. He’s powerless to help out here. He doesn’t even know who runs PR or who runs customer service (they compartmentalize everything — he’s working on something secret and he only gets to see his own part on the motherboard and doesn’t get to see how it works in a bigger whole. So you expect him to get me some help? Heheh, funny, not to mention that he’s not allowed to talk with me about anything Apple).

Also, lots of people know who I am, so if I start “influencing” the world for Patrick, then you’ll just bash me for getting Patrick some extra special treatment (just read above for other people already playing that card cause I’m complaining on my blog).

Maybe I’m not a good parent, but I’d rather Patrick learn some negotiating skills on his own and I’d rather him get the self confidence that comes from a parent letting him solve his own problems.

That said, I see evidence of a larger trend here that goes beyond Patrick’s computer. That’s why I’m bringing it out on my blog and making a big deal about it.

And, at the time, waiting two weeks to get his computer fixed didn’t seem like that big a deal. It was only later after I saw just how bad Patrick felt (he’s a real Mac fan, and this was sort of shattering to his world view that Apple is a great company) and also when I thought back to how other stores had treated me that I realized that Apple wasn’t being “best in the industry” like what its hype leads us all to believe.

Robert, you’re right about trying to get their policies to change. but the issue is that Apple is technically not a store. They’re not Costco or Best Buy. They’re Dell or Compaq. They’re just a step above the Dell cart in the mall. They don’t seem to have the store concept down 100%, and their policy seems to be to send it for repair. I don’t really know all of the ins and outs of the problem or the policies. But part of this is being an informed consumer. Perhaps taking Patrick up to the counter and letting him explain the problem to them and then helping him understand how to handle it would have helped him learn how to handle it and might have gotten a better resolution for him.

I sent in a 3 year old iBook G4 on 12/24 (box arrived 3 days earlier, got DHL to pick up on the 24th) to fix 5 different problems (wife’s computer, she beats on it) and it came back on 12/28 completely repaired. Great customer service.

A friend’s MacBook Pro Core Duo needs to have the keyboard replaced. Apple told her it would take 1 week to order the part and another 2 days to do the repair. That is bad customer service, especially for such a seemingly simple repair as a keyboard replacement.

We have 1 MacBook Pro Core 2 Duo with zero problems, 1 month old.

So I think the trend might be that supplies are tight on MacBook related parts, but plentiful on older G4 related parts, thus customer service is taking longer.

Here is the return policy from Apple’s website:

http://store.apple.com/Catalog/US/Images/salespolicies.html#Return%20Policy

I suspect that the physical stores have similar policies even if they’re not posted. I’ve seen people return merchandise at the Apple store before and don’t believe in the over-legalization of our daily lives. Perhaps Apple actually gives its customers too much credit (you view this as arrogance) by thinking that a clearly stated two week repair period would be considered reasonable by many people, especially when the strategy is to under-promise and over-deliver (my experiences with Apple service, though few, have always been professional and timely). As you wrote, your son just wanted the problem fixed. Hence, Apple assumed that he wanted the problem fixed. Apple did not assume that he wanted the problem replaced, which still may have been an option. Perhaps you would not be blogging about this if this had transpired instead:

Your Son: I just got this MacBookPro as a present but it’s defective (explain problem). Can I get it repaired today?

Apple: Not for this problem. I don’t think so.

Your Son: OK, then I’d like to return it for a full refund.

Apple: OK.

Patrick gets the money back (via you), and buys another new MacBook Pro.

Robert,

just wondering, why isn’t your son blogging his experience? Or his he and I just missed the link to his blog?

Hey Robert,

First off – my sympathy is entirely with Patrick. When I was 12 I was dealing with tech support folks too (I handled a lot of tech stuff for my Dad as he felt he was too “technologically dyslexic” to interact with the “techie types” and he thought it was good for me) and it can be really frustrating for a kid (gets more frustrating as you get older Patrick *grin*).

Once I finished writing the rest of this this I realised it was way too long for a reply so please find full post here: http://salubri.journals.ie/2007/01/02/customer-service-oh-why-hast-thou-forsaken-us/ (Trackbacks from my blog do not seem to be working)

Robert: “I’d rather Patrick learn some negotiating skills on his own and I’d rather him get the self confidence that comes from a parent letting him solve his own problems”

But the skill is choosing the occasion to do this and he really wanted his MacBook fixed, didn’t he? Time and place, Robert; even if he bought it himself, it wasn’t the occasion to leave him solely to his own efforts? I wouldn’t do this for my two 16 year olds and one aged 17 if they were up against a big company especially around Christmas time.

What I just cannot accept is that you can be so certain that if Patrick had been left to go back on his own to Best Buy or CostCo (if he’d got the laptop from either of these) that he would have been treated any better. All you are doing is comparing an actual experience with paper on a wall.

I have had bad experiences with the Apple store and the “genius bar” (ahem) since I bought the Powerbook before my MacBook Pro. But once I blogged about it, and my blog made its way to someone, because the next time I went to the Apple store in Burlingame they treated me like royalty. I think they do listen, but they have a bad system; they should replace defective boxes and then rebuild them on their own time, not Patrick’s — or mine.