Slashdot Mirror
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.
...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.
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.
"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
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.
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.
Thats Richard Branson. He does that kind of thing because it gets in the news and it is much cheaper than paying for advertising. He is a similar kind of charismatic leader, though.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
You start using foreign phrases and shit like that and it just oozes class.
A goal is a dream with a deadline
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.
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?"
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.