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Steve Jobs Personally Resolves Customer Complaint
An anonymous reader writes "The Consumerist recently published a story about an Apple customer who went through support hell with a broken Macbook. After escalating the issue up the support chain, and a month wait for his Macbook, the guy gave up and simply wrote Steve Jobs a blistering flame-mail. So, was he surprised when Jobs' executive assistant responded back the next day! He got both a brand new Macbook, as well as his old one to copy the hard drive. The guy also responded in a comment, and he turns out to be a slashdotter! He even wrote a journal entry here about the story."
Sounds more like Job's admin staff dealt with it than Jobs himself.
How cool would it have been if Steve came to that guys house and rang the doorbell and said "I didn't appreciate the tone of your letter, it was very hurtful." and then just left.
In a world of acronyms, the words are the real victims.
I don't believe what he sent would qualify as a flame-mail. It seems to be a well-reasoned and cool-headed response to a support nightmare. Kudos to Steve Jobs for fixing it for him.
Yeah, his direct assistant... who reads and answers sjobs@apple.com. This of course, in contrast to all the replies you get from bgates@microsoft.com (or whatever the hell his email is) Sure, this seems now like a silent marketing ploy by apple, but the fact is... a desperate email sent on a hail mary to the top of the apple food chain was answered, and not for publicity (by apple at least). Go send one to bgates@microsoft.com about not being able to refuse your Vista EULA on your new dell box, wait 24 hours, then submit an article to slashdot about how they refunded your product.
~/.sig: No such file or directory
...and now has an asshole that's about 3 bore sizes larger than it was last week. Yikes.
I'm sure he has a staff of secretaries that screen everything and is well versed by now how to take care of these relatively unimportant problems (unimportant to Jobs - I imagine that guy is busy with other, more pressing matters). Though it might be a good idea to have the CEO of any corporation see the failures of his organization every so often.
I've looked up the details of whoever's in charge and contacted them directly before. Or, more accurately, got the name of the managing director, called head office, asked to be put through to "their office" and spoken to their PA.
On the plus side, it's fantastically effective. A call from anyone at that level - or even their PA - will often go to the head of customer services very quickly, and get the issue resolved in far less time than trying to work your way up through a call centre staffed with people who quite frankly don't much care about any individual customer's complaint.
On the minus side, it's not something you'd want to do terribly often - particularly not with one company - as it would rapidly lose effectiveness. And if you find yourself in a position where you've got to do this more than once, even for separate incidents, maybe they don't need your business that badly anyway.
If I had gone through the shit he has gone through
the mail I'd have sent would sound 10X more nastier
than what he had sent.
And maybe that's what mattered in the end. The cool
and collected way Mr. Maynard wrote the disgruntled-
customer email must've done the job(no pun intended).
The best planning can be done after the project completes.
According to "Consumer Reports", Apple has the best customer service of ALL the PC and laptop makers and their quality also beats everyone. If you look at their charts, Apple takes the lead by a wide margin, none of this jazz of they're 8.2 while the closest competitor is 8.1. (Unfortunately, I don't have the issue in front of me to give you guys the real number numbers to show how well Apple rates.)
Now, here's the best, and they're pulling this horseshit!?
Stopping now because I need more coffee.
Steve Jobs is a deity, He came, he was killed (removed from the company) and returned again with salvation for Apple (iPod, iMac, generally making Apple cool)
In a world of acronyms, the words are the real victims.
One famous manager (I don't remember who exactly though) once said, that if the company's leader performs mere employee's duties then either he does not understand his role or there is something terribly wrong with the way the company operates.
Look at this story: the guy waited for months for the support to handle the problem!
May Peace Prevail On Earth
"So, I installed the WGA update and it mistakenly identified my OS as pirated....after two months of trying to resolve the issue through technical support where I was repeatedly assured that, '...we understand problem...send you SUPER DELUXE answer....next day....you betcha!', I finally contacted Steve Ballmer himself. Amazingly, he showed up at my house the very next day!.....and threw a folding chair at me.....so I bought a MacBook"
[DISCLAIMER: every word of this is BS (duh)]
A goal is a dream with a deadline
Promptly I got a phone call from his assistant. Unlike Apple they did not fix anything. She offered a 20$ off 2007Deluxe, which is basically the standard discount everywhere from Costco to web downloads. I think they just sold the right to use Quicken name to some bank for a one time fee and Quicken does not care whether I keep the card or not. The bank is really dumb to lose me as a customer. I had charged more than 100,000$ over the years in that card. They should be willing to spend 0.5% or 500$ to keep me as a customer. They just lost me over a stupid 30$ software update I demanded.
I also heard a story about the CEO of Virgin Atlantic (charles bronson?? or was he an actor, God I have bad memory for names) traveling with the public or playing the role of a flight attendent/steward and listen to customers. One Indian guy had ordered vegetarian meals and it was not available. Charles was playing steward on that flight. He made an unscheduled landing at a nearby airport and rented a limo to take the passenger to an expensive Indian joint and flew him first class to complete the journey.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
You know, some of us have known for a while that Steve replies to his email, or at least a small subset of the torrents he probably receives every day (a couple of public examples). He's answered a few of the questions I've emailed him over the years, too, and I'm just a regular Slashdotter Joe.
But the more publicity he gets for doing it, and the more people actually try to email him, the less likely he'll be to read and respond, and the less personal it's actually going to get. It's obvious from the numbers. Part of me hates myself for saying this, and I acknowledge that it's elitist as all hell, but I sort of wish these guys (the ones "in the know" about Steve's responsiveness over email) would keep it to themselves. Because if Steve stops answering his email, that's another piece gone of the old Apple spirit.
Of course, I suppose we must all eventually succumb to inevitability—but there's no harm delaying that end, while possible. So please. Enough. Let me suggest we simply appreciate Steve for keeping it real, and not trumpet it all over the blog-o-spierre.
Customer Service call centers just suck. I probably should have tried this tactic with HP a month or two back. I think the big problem with so many of these places is that they refuse to admit thier own mistakes, or if they do, they refuse to properly fix the situation. In my case, I had paid for overnight shipping and the product wasn't shipped until they it was actually supposed to arrive, and even then it was shipped to the wrong address. Instead of just refunding me the cost of shipping and getting the part to me the next day, he tried to explain how it would have been impossible for me to receive the part on time. It looks like the same type of thing happened here. Someone in the customer care department made a promise and never followed through with it. For the record, while I was on hold with HP for over hour, I got the opportunity to listen to how highly rated their customer service was. Do high service ratings really mean anything? One really shouldn't have to go outside the regular system in order to get the level of service expected from these big companies. Hats off to whoever it was at Apple that made things right though. It's certainly better than I got.
Well the author of the mail certainly has not sent a flame mail. On the contrary, it is very level headed and well reasoned. However, I do believe the fact that he has been an apple customer for over 30 years and that he's an IT Manager at MIT with the ability to sway the students' and staffs' buying preferences (which he makes sure gets conveyed in the mail) had an effect. I doubt if I had been in the same situation and written a similar mail, would get a similar response. Overall, I applaud the author for doing the right thing.
BOB SLYDELL: So what you do is you take the specifications from the customers and you bring them down to the software engineers?
TOM: That, that's right.
BOB PORTER: Well, then I gotta ask, then why can't the customers just take the specifications directly to the software people, huh?
TOM: Well, uh, uh, uh, because, uh, engineers are not good at dealing with customers.
BOB SLYDELL: You physically take the specs from the customer?
TOM: Well, no, my, my secretary does that, or, or the fax.
BOB SLYDELL: Ah.
BOB PORTER: Then you must physically bring them to the software people.
TOM: Well...no. Yeah, I mean, sometimes.
BOB SLYDELL: Well, what would you say... you do here?
TOM: Well, look, I already told you. I deal with the goddamn customers so the engineers don't have to!! I have people skills!! I am good at dealing with people!!! Can't you understand that?!? WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?!!!!!!!
u-bend
Ive got an idea for you... Next time you have a major problem with windows, send a personal email to Steve Balmer and see how far it gets you... :-)
The point is Apple, and apparently Steve Jobs as well, still understands that they are there to serve people and not people serving them. As long as Apple rememembers this, they will continue to take the high end and most profitable customers.
Oh, and I would believe the "Apple has an insignficant market share" argument... Apple is taking the most profitable customers from the rest of the tech industry. Those are the most painful for Microsoft/Dell/HP to loose...
You start using foreign phrases and shit like that and it just oozes class.
A goal is a dream with a deadline
Could we please stop this Apple fanboyism? How is this interesting in any way?
"Today the great chairman Mao visited a poor child in the village Mangtung. He gave the child healthy food and read a story. This how out great chairman Mao cares cares for all the people."
I feel many people are afraid to ask for or demand better service when needed. Sometimes you simply have to escalate as far as possible to get any sort of result. Systems break down and often it only takes the incompetence or lack of caring in one person in a lengthy process.
Around aught-zero my DSL provider was forced out of business by some rather dramatic changes in the DSL market. They had a length of time to shut down and began immediately cutting employees. At the time this was a very fast DSL connection and my bill was on the order of $200 a month. After canceling my service they continued to charge me. I called, of course it would be fixed! It wasn't for month two... then three... then four, every month them charging me only to refund money after many calls on my part and being told the problem was fixed for good.
Month five. They did it again. So I did what any pissed off customer would do, I flew down to their office and bea... er. Found their about page and looked for personal information for company employees listed at the VP level and above. Guess others had done the same, because it was all impossible to find. Then I noticed their board list, sure enough, many of the board members had information available online. So I wrote one, more out of frustration than anything explaining what had happened for the previous five months. Twenty minutes later the CEO of the company called me and assured me the problem would be resolved and then proceeded to offer me an additional refund for my "time spent on their failure".
The point of all this? Even the boss has a boss or someone he is "scared of" or "respects". When you come to the end of a normal process without success, it is okay to escalate to them.
--- I do not moderate.
The reports that XP offers to send to Microsoft, when an application crashes, do not count.
I really wish I hadn't BCC:d the Consumerist now. That was a mistake. I did it because I was angry and didn't expect any kind of resolution from Apple Corporate. I really didn't believe that even if Jobs read his email he would take action to resolve the issue. And now the whole shebang is posted to slashdot. Along with his email address. What a mess.
My situation was extreme. I do NOT recommend emailing Mr. Jobs until fully exhausting the Apple support chain. If you have a problem, ask for a supervisor. If the supervisor can't fix it, ask for "customer relations". Call your local Apple store before sending that email (I did). And finally, after a month of hell, if all else fails, well... do a google search and find his current email address.
But please don't waste the dude's time. I would have the same opinion regardless of the CEO or company.
Bill Gates did the same thing once. The guy was found dead, strangled with his own Ethernet cable. I TOLD Uncle Chuck to get wireless, but would he listen...? Now it's too late...
That can't be Steve Jobs! I heard Steve Jobs is 12 feet tall and shoots lightnings with his eyes, and if he were here, he would fix all your laptops with firebolts coming out of his arse!
The saddest poem
I personally think that makes a very strong statement about Mr. Jobs's commitment to superior customer service.
Hmmm...I can't seem to find the page on Apple's website that explains how to escalate your problem past the Customer Service monkeys when you can't get it resolved. How is that superior customer service? I think the problem is that we're so used to crappy service that when we get *any* service at all it's considered "superior". I, for one, am not about to applaud Apple for "going above and beyond" when the thing that necessitated it was a complete failure of the system in question.
"Tell me doctor, with all of your defenses, are there any provisions for an attack by killer bees?"
People do that to make their tech support issue seem like a bigger deal than it really is. I've heard people say they haven't been able to use their computer for weeks when the only thing that was wrong was the printer cartridge was dry.
Steve Jobs didn't give birth to the iPod, it sprang from his skull fully grown.
Steve Jobs doesn't code software or fabricate hardware, he sensually caresses raw silicon until it wants to please him.
Steve Jobs' turtleneck is actually his own sleek yet soft and downy coat of fur.
Chuck Norris almost fought Steve Jobs this one time when Chuck's iPod died on him halfway through the kickass guitar solo in "Freebird," but Steve used his powers to not only repair Chuck's iPod, but also did a reality-restore point back to before the crash. Chuck Norris and Steve Jobs have been allies ever since.
Steve Jobs doesn't actually sleep, he astral-projects into other people's dreams. It's how he comes up with new products.
This is nothing new. sjobs@apple.com, stevejobs@apple.com, and a few other addresses all go to Corporate Executive Relations. This is a group of premier customer service folks that have the power to get things done if the lower tiers are failing.
Please, everyone, don't abuse it. I've had a couple of issues that the regular AppleCare folks weren't taking care of properly, and those issues were promptly resolved by the friendly people in Corporate Executive Relations. I'd hate to see them lose their effectiveness because they're being bombarded with things that ought to be going to regular AppleCare.
Did I ever tell you about the time Jobs took me out to go get a drink with him? We go off looking for a bar and we can't find one. Finally Jobs takes me to a vacant lot and says, 'Here we are.' We sat there for a year and a half -- until sure enough, someone constructs a bar around us. Well, the day they opened we ordered a shot, drank it, and then burned the place to the ground. Jobs yelled over the roar of the flames, 'Always leave things the way you found 'em!'
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
How about this line: "I have GBs of ripped music, application installs, etc which I will lose." Hello! You are an IT person at MIT and you don't have a firewire/USB2 external drive with the backed up data? Really???
I've always been pretty pleased with my Apple purchases, until I ordered one of the early Macbook Pro notebooks. I had to wait about a month for its arrival, which wasn't any fun - but I went into it knowing that would probably happen. What REALLY sucked is, when it arrived, it was completely D.O.A.! I could plug the power adapter in and got the green light saying it was supplying power, but the computer wouldn't do a thing. I went through all the usual steps (reset PMU, etc.) and no luck.
... or that's what I was thinking.) I opened the box though, and saw paperwork on top. Woah! It said they DID work on it already! New bluetooth module installed along with a few other related parts, AND they even fixed the display hinges I commented felt "a little bit loose"!
Apple promptly shipped me a postage-paid return mailer to send it back in, but I had to wait several *more* weeks for a second unit!
Then, shortly after receiving the second (working, thankfully!) unit, Apple announced a voluntary battery recall. Knowing the problems people had with other batteries splitting open, etc. - I called in to get that taken care of. I had to send in my original battery, which I did, but the replacement they provided refused to charge at all! I tried to get it resolved at the local Apple store, but after getting the big runaround (make an appointment to talk to us at the genius bar, drive home, and come back hours later, etc. etc.), I was simply told they had no more batteries in stock so they couldn't help me! Ugh! Why wouldn't they simply tell me that when I first came in, instead of the bull-headed refusal to speak to me until I made that appointment and came back later!?!
Then I called in to Apple, only to wind up arguing with some guy who tried to tell me I wasn't allowed to get free phone support because I had my laptop longer than 90 days and didn't pay for AppleCare! WTF?! I was asking about the BATTERY they JUST sent me, not the laptop itself! He finally did swap the battery for me, but only after a condescending attitude and an insistence I understand this was only being done because he was "making a 1 time exception" to their policy.
By this time, I was really getting pissed off at the way Apple's support seemed to be rapidly going downhill! But at least I had a working notebook for a while. That is, until one day, my bluetooth suddenly quit working! It was still within warranty by a month or so, so I gritted my teeth and called Apple. They made me give them my CC number first, but did walk me through some steps (including making a new user account in OS X to see if bluetooth would come back that way, which it didn't). Then they agreed it was defective and had me ship it back to them again.
I sent it off the next morning after receipt of their mailer, bracing for weeks of waiting AGAIN. The next morning, I had a box sitting on my doorstep when I was heading off to work. Huh? My notebook! I was REALLY pissed this time. (Obviously someone screwed up and didn't get it delivered properly, or Apple messed up and sent it back without even looking at it!
Was this service so prompt this time because Apple realized I had so many issues, and/or because I posted about all of it to several well-read forums? I'll never know - but THAT was TOP-NOTCH service!
Couldn't help it - it's a slow Thursday. ;)
It has nothing to do with stock options or Greenpeace. Writing to the Steve Jobs email address (which of course does not go directly to Jobs) has long been a way of getting a bit of positive attention from Apple when their lower level organization has screwed the pooch. I've never used it myself (worst I had to do is use a firm tone with an Apple Store idio..err, genius) but a few people on Broadbandreports.com have.
I'm sure having the address slashdotted will mean it is less useful; they'll probably stop paying attention to it for a while. Hopefully after this story blows over and volumes recede, it will continue to be a useful resource.
Bring macbook to local Apple store (cambridgeside galleria perhaps) instead of dealing with phone support.
Mac genius fixes macbook the same day.
rejoice.
I've had a couple of instances. Back in 1999, I bought a new HP Pavilion desktop machine. I was on dialup at the time and it had a Rockwell chipset modem on the same card as the sound. My phone line was not the best, 28.8 was obtainable on a very dry day in August, usually 26.4 was the usual connect speed, but I had no affordable alternatives. The HP modem would connect, but the call would be dropped within a minute. The two other computers in the house with different modems could stay connected for hours. I went through HP phone support with the techs there were reading from a script blaming the phone line. One of the guys even whispered "Read between the lines." I posted to their forums for my model and had my posts deleted where I criticized the modem. Finally, I wrote a very polite letter to the, then CEO, the one before Carly, describing the problem and why it was the modem, not the phone line or my setup. I mailed it from the Midwest on a Thursday. Monday I got a call from a gentleman in the CEO's office who said that if I bought whatever modem I thought would work and sent them a copy of the receipt via fax, they would immediately cut me a check for that amount. I bought the newest USR USB modem which sold for $239.95, faxed the receipt and got a check within 4 days.
Much more recently, I had trouble with a web site hosting company that I've had a site with for several years. They changed management and I started having serious trouble with the mail server where we have about 70 email accounts. For several days I tried to work through their phone support (Philippines - Very nice, Polite, easy to understand), but couldn't get the problem fixed with the server in Atlanta. I finally got escalated to email exchanges with a sysadmin, who wasn't getting the problem resolved either. I took a shot at guessing the email address of the CEO given that I now knew the pattern of their email addresses and got a quick response directly from him stating that I would be getting a phone call ASAP from their director of customer service and the head sysadmin. The calls came as promised and the problem got fixed quickly.
So sometimes getting to the top guy works, but I use it sparingly as it can be overdone, too.
"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
I hate to say this . . . but this is normal.
I have had two situations with Apple and problem laptops.
An extended warranty iBook died a couple of weeks after warranty with the same screen problem that was covered.
My sixteen year old wrote (hard copy) letter to Steve. A worker at Apple called him and problem resolved. No Steve did not call him. A second time, had a problem with an out of warranty book and it was fixed. However, once one works up the food chain, the letter goes along way.
This letter was polite and nice and asking for help. No threats. No Apple hating. Just a simple request.
Apple is the BEST company when it comes to customer service. Yes, we all have problems with first level responders. However, Apple is really good when it comes to CS.
-- A computer without Windoze is like a choclate cake without mustard
I can confirm this. Apple had no idea I had BCC:d the Consumerist until was published. Then the assistant called me to say he would have preferred I had not included Mr. Jobs' email address. It was a somewhat awkward conversation. Mostly because I realized that what I had done in BCC:ing the Consumerist had no effect on the resolution and will instead cause an unnecessary headache for Apple.
Look, I'm just a customer. I had a problem with a company and got pissed. So I tried to make a stink. But before the stinkbomb went off, the company quickly resolved my problem. And then the Consumerist published the story. I suppose I shouldn't blame the Consumerist, they're just doing their job as journalists.
*sigh*
I ordered a BTO iMac G5 back in March '05, and wound up getting entirely the wrong unit (and as equipped, it was pretty much useless to me). I went through the process of getting an RMA, and they told me I'd have a replacement in a week or two (the usual build cycle then). I was OK with that, but wrote a nice e-mail to Steve asking him what the manufacturing breakdown was that let that happen, and that though I was fine with the goof, I hoped it was a rare case. I even explicitly said in the message that I wasn't expecting anything from Apple as a result - it was just to let him know it had happened, and hopefully it wouldn't be a regular problem.
A couple of hours later, one of his assistants called me. He had all the info on exactly what had happened to that sales order, and explained the whole thing to me. The next morning, my new iMac arrived at my office around 9AM, even before the pickup was ready to go of the old one.
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."