Why Everyone Loves Apple

realtorperson writes "Why, at least the Apple users, love Apple? According to a recent article, the pure and simple reason is customer service and overall experience. The author writes, 'When Apple competitors are focused on cost reduction to increase profitability, Apple is investing resources to enhance its relationship with its customers. To me, that's impressive. Unfortunately, there are too many companies in the market that could care less about their customers, but Apple is determined and committed in delivering the experience and not just the product. It's regrettably amusing that Apple competitors are working hastily to develop iPod clones to reap in success, but what many of them fail to comprehend is that it's not necessarily the iPod that makes Apple successful, but rather its customer service.'"

Comments

Best customer service

[noelmarkham]

I recently had to take my Intel Mac Mini back to the London Regent Street store after a problem booting up. Unfortunately it was one day after the 14-day refund and replace guarantee had expired. They said, 'oh well, 15 days is close enough', and they replaced it there and then on the spot, and transferred all my data on to the new machine on the same day. I don't think I've ever experienced anything like that with any other company ever.

Apple's service is not that great.

[tgd]

I have two dead iPods and a dead iBook to show for my experiment with Apple. One died just out of warranty, the replacement I bought had the drive go with less than a month left on the warranty. The replacement came, and turns out had a bad dock connector. Unfortunately they wouldn't honor a warranty on the replacement and in the two remaining weeks of the warranty, I didn't happen to use the replacement. So now I've got two dead iPods.

I also have a iBook that died with the extremely common logic board failure two months out of warranty... a problem that they extended the warranty coverage for on the G3 iBooks, but didn't do on the G4 even though its a very common problem.

Apple was the reason I left ten years of Linux use as my primary desktop OS behind, and Apple is the reason I'll be going back.

Customers Service at Apple is awful!

[Manip]

I had a problem with a recent iTunes patch, long story short it broke all DRM-ed music playback on my PC but not on the iPod. Tried all the standard bits, uninstall, reinstall, looked up help page...

Sure Apple did have a help page for the problem but it didn't help one tiny bit.

So I contacted them. Said something like "DRM protection music is distorted during playback as suggested by an apple help page(URL); MP3, WMA, and CD Audio playback works just fine ..." and they sent back a cookie cutter "You can't convert to WMA" ...

This is just yet another company that doesn't give too hoots enough to read what you send them or to respond on their forums. The article is talking a whole load of bull from my experiences with apple up to this point.

If you ask me, the company with the single best customer service is Amzon(.co.uk). They don't bull you... They are MORE than fair, and don't make you jump though hoops.

How I Hate Corporate Fanboys

[pandrijeczko]

Look, I've never owned an Apple product, never had the need for one, so I'm certainly not qualified to comment on whether their products/service are any good or not. From what others tell me, I suspect they're probably okay so that's it.

But can we PLEASE get it into our heads ONCE AND FOR ALL that the purpose of any big corporation is JUST to make money for its shareholders - END OF STORY!!! Whether or not you, the consumer, thinks they make good or bad products is pretty much irrelevant to them once they have your money. And if they give you a good customer service and/or a good feeling every time you deal with them, it is not because they're feeling nice, warm or friendly about you but because it is profitable to do so.

If you love your Mac or your iPod then great - good luck to you. But PLEASE get it out of your thick skull that wearing a corporate logo of ANY sort is cool - it isn't because it just goes to show the rest of the world that you are insecure enough to want to belong to one (or more) exclusive little cliques that makes you feel special because you can look down on those that aren't members of those same cliques.

Buy an article of clothing because it looks nice on you or feels good on you, buy an iPod because it sounds good or fits well in your jeans pocket - but don't just buy something because it's made by "Gap" or "Apple" because then you really are showing the rest of the world only how much of a corporate puppet you really are...