Christmas is approaching and with it the end of the first fiscal quarter for many computer companies including Apple. This is the time when these companies make their biggest sales of the year. It’s also the time when J.D. Power & Associates is finishing-up its PC quality surveys which cover initial quality and overall service and support. If you are an Apple customer or a prospective Apple customer pay attention, because this could be a very good time to be you.
Apple is proud of its support operation, which is ironic given that back in the early Apple ][ days Steve Jobs wanted to save money by mimeographing user manuals. I am not making this up. Obviously Steve has changed his point of view because he has been back in charge of Apple now for 12 years and for the last nine of those Apple has been the top PC company for both quality and support according to J.D. Power.
Winning a competition nine years in a row doesn’t come easily, certainly doesn’t come by accident and luck has nothing to do with it.
This month Apple has a chance to clinch a 10th win in a row and the entire company, from Steve Jobs on down, is determined to do just that. I’m not saying this because of any intuition or simple application of logic. I’m telling you that Jobs has made it clear in company meetings that Apple will win its 10th J.D. Power award whatever it costs.
So hie thee to an Apple store, my friends. Take with you any and every Apple product you own that’s still under warranty and attempt to get them to give you a new one, because they’ll probably do it. Apple is willing right now to spend tens of millions taking back or replacing products they would normally refuse to do — that they’ll probably refuse to do a month from now — just to clinch that darned trophy.
I’m sure they’ll win again, but let’s make them earn it, shall we?
Damn. None of our Apple products have any problems. Otherwise sounds like a good idea.
That could be because every problem you have comes under the heading “it’s supposed to work that way.” (Like the missing bluetooth or the power cord that keeps falling out of the laptop.)
Does this apply outside of the US?
ahh….
In the last two months our local Apple store repaired an out of warranty G5 iMac and replaced two out of warranty MacBook Pros (display adaptor problems) for our little family. I was wondering what was going on.
Tell J.D Power & Associates that I think Apple totally rocks..
Well thats Cringely off Steve Jobs Christmas card list this year.
We are fans of Apple. They replaced the guts of a 30″ monitor. Not just replaced. They upgraded the inside to HD. My wife is THRILLED.
If any of our computers were even sniffling they’d be in to the local Apple store. Alas, none of them are sick, or showing signs of being sick.
This is why we buy Apple and support them. maintain U.S. based support centers, not outsourced/offshore. It is hard to have good customer support if your support centers are far, far away in many different timezones. Just ask Dell, HP and Compaq.
Take care,
Dang typo. For the want of one word, it was un-readable, at least to me. Here is the corrected paragraph:
This is why we buy Apple and support them. They maintain U.S. based support centers, not outsourced/offshore. It is hard to have good customer support if your support centers are far, far away in many different timezones. Just ask Dell, HP and Compaq.
While Apple does have several call centers located in the US and other native-English speaking nations, they also have a large number of call centers in Bangalore, Cebu, and other offshore locations, often for first-level iPod and now iPhone support.
Hi,
I almost always get 4 World Warcraft adverts when I visit your site. Can’t we have some variety so that we can visit some of those sites?
It’s behavioral advertising.
Then all of my ads should be Doc Johnson’s. :o)
I’d take in my original (1984, 128k) mac for a checkup, but alas, it is still running fine. For that matter, my 165c, iMac and iPod Touch are all in great shape.
🙂
My two Apple IIe’s and IIgs are still working fine as well, along with their Apple brand peripherals.
I’ve got an old 233MHz G3 desktop that still runs OS9 just fine. I’d love to trade it in on a shiny new 27″ iMac but I need it to run some expensive OS9 bound software (CAD, Quark, Office) that I rarely but sometimes use and can’t afford to upgrade. It’s mostly the solitaire machine. My original 128k Mac died a few years ago and I gave it away at a garage sale.
After getting a new motherboard and power supply five months after purchase, the Aluminum ’07 20″ iMac is running fine.
Please don’t abuse this too much. I’m a very minor shareholder.
As a shareholder, i also agree. tread lightly, and I prefer you only bring in stuff under warranty.
I for one am not going to bring in my son’s `02 TiPowerbook800 that just broke it’s hinge (luckily he just finished his Senior thesis paper on it). Damn… If my other son’s ’03 Ti867 hadn’t broke the same hinge last year, I’d still have a part for it, as we cannibalized my ’01 Ti400 (which is currently serving a printer on my wireless network).
I’ll be good and hand down (like I did 5 years ago;-) my ‘work’ 15″ macbook pro, and take the business expense of another laptop (Uncle sam pays for my computers, not Uncle Steve).
Alas, my daughter has a dead SuperDrive in her 3 year old Macbook, and just out of warranty. sigh. That may be a out of warranty field upgrade (my oldest wants to be a surgeon… the one downside to macs is that normally FRU macbook components require the dexterity of a vascular specialist to excise and replace. Then again, it’s a b*tch to change the brake fluid on my 03 Honda, so I guess it’s par for the course.
Last month they replaced the plastics on my out of warranty MacBook.
Do go to to an Apple Store, do be patient and friendly, do make sure to let your Genius know that you know they have the power to solve your problem (subtlety wins here). Do make it a sport, nothing ventured nothing gained. Don’t take it personally if they can’t help you.
Happy Hunting.
I wish Sony would try for the award sometime . . . my kids’ Wii broke, out of warranty, and Nintendo took it, could not repair it, but then replaced it for free – and all their saved games were transferred to the replacement unit. The Blue Ray drive stopped working on their PS3 – I was an early adopter and got one of the initial ones – out of warranty. Sony charged me almost as much as a new PS3 to replace the drive and guess what all my kids’ saved games were wiped from the machine when I got it back (same machine, just new Blue Ray drive). They said they spent months building up a great rock band and now they have to start over. Plus I had purchased some games over the internet and those are gone from the system too.
This is what I, Cringely has come to? Taking advantage of Apple because they have a goal to be quality-focused? Really?
Did some one replace Cringely with Rob Enderle?
It won’t surprise me if Apple does win. When you sell machines that can demand a premium price, you get to do things other companies that build commodity products like Dell and HP cannot do — build solid well design units and give decent customer service.
Microsoft might ape Apple’s successful stores, but there’s one thing Microsoft’s stores will never do: Make gobs of money. Apple can give a nice user experience, allow people to loll around, slurp up Internet bandwidth, and do their email because Apple can still make money even without cramming every square inch of the store with boxes and hiring a sparse, low paid staff.
And despite the so called “Apple Tax”, Apple’s computers are actually quite reasonable in price for what you get. Apple must love Dell’s new Adamo line. These are high quality machines that almost go head-to-head with Apple’s MacBook Pro, yet somehow actually cost more. The Perl Adamo is slower than the equivalent MacBook Pro, weighs more, yet costs $200 more. The Adamo XPS is $300 more than the quicker MacBook Air.
Three weeks ago I broke my iPhone – totally my fault. No case, headphones snagged on my chair arm, iPhone pulled out of my pocket and unluckily fell on my glass chair mat on edge (get one from my friend Marsha at glassmat.net, you will not regret it, despite the web page), and I suddenly I had a spiderweb faceplate on my phone.
My Genius Bar dude looked it over and said “Okay, I’m going to do a one time special exception and give you a new phone.”
I was stunned, needless to say. And suspicious. Why was Apple being so nice? My guess at the time was that they had an iPhone hardware defect and swapping out phones was going to save them trouble later.
I like Robert’s theory better. And if support is being super-generous, who cares what the motive is, it pays off for all of us.
I did send the guy a Starbucks gift card yesterday. He made my day, I hope it makes his.
– Mark
apple stinks, and so do my armpits.
Hey, one out of two ain’t bad. You’re batting .500.
Sunny Guy
In Braintree, MA they were not feeling generous at all when I took in my sister’s out of warranty G5 imac. They told us $500+ to fix logic board problem. Maybe they only fix certain (cheap) types of problems for free.
Had a completely flawless service experience at the LIverpool Apple Store; genuinely perfect — out of warranty replacement for an iPhone with a spent battery, and one from a foreign country and an unknown network provider. Cost me money, but still very very good. Now I know why…
I have bought an ipod touch for my wife for xmas. Once out of its cardboard box it is a delicate device which is presented in a neat little transparent case. Makes it very easy to take out, sync with her itunes, fill her with music, charge up and fill with lots of little apps I choose and pop back into case like new. I have even added the wireless setting for my house and her parents where we are at. So come xmas day it is all ready to go but still looks likes new.
I think it will go down well – thanks Apple.
I am sure she is going to love it. Especially that you made the extra effort to have it set up out of the box…Apple, despite any criticism makes opening a product a great experience.
Steve hasn’t changed his mind on manuals; nowadays he puts them on a cheap CD instead of printing them!
Of course for the most part, he’s made sure very little of his products require you to ever get out the manual. And for that I salute you, Mr. Jobs.
The Nvidia debacle was handled quietly enough in 2008 I guess not to break the streak. Apple’s still having to pay a bit of CYA for that one though.
I have a 24″ apple display with a few pixel anomalies. Maybe this is my chance to get it replaced with one that’s perfect and not the weird stuck or tweaked pixels.
Man this didn’t work worth shit!
This must be driving the MBAs at Apple crazy! Apple does employ MBAs, right? Wait…maybe not. That would explain a lot!
Bob,
There are 1,200 posts or so on a manufacturing problem with the new flagship iMacs:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2212682&start=1215&tstart=0
Quite a few people are getting returns with less than the usual fight, and some are being allowed to hold on to the bad ones.
it’s still quite a train wreck! Might mess up that 10th year streak.
Mine flickers too (Damnit, I know better than to buy new gear from Apple. I was weak.) I’m waiting to see if they announce a fix in the next five days, if not I’ll return it and try for a later manufactured model.
I guess this makes up for all the times I had to refuse repairs on the MS1710 monitors because their SN was slightly out of range and pb5300s and 15″ monitors and get screamed at…
And yes, Apple does have MBAs… I recall one telling us that “just because a customer whines that they can’t afford out of warranty repairs because they are in graduate school doesn’t mean they get anything from us. Apple didn’t pay for my MBA.”
Wow. I just can’t believe it’s been 12 years already. I had to stop and Google that to check… it just seems so recent.
I do need to get my MacBook Pro’s DVD drive fixed, but I don’t want to be Macless (well, almost… I love my PowerBook G4 when it manages to stay awake) during the holidays while they fix it, since this is the time of year when I have time to do all sorts of cool stuff with my Mac. Hmm…
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Totally disagree with you on that one. Nice try though!
If you’re still on the fence: grab your favorite earphones, head down to a Best Buy and ask to plug them into a Zune then an iPod and see which one sounds better to you, and which interface makes you smile more. Then you’ll know which is right for you.
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Well this explains a recent repair visit to my local genius bar. My out of warranty MacBook Pro had lost it’s video. This turned out to be a “known problem” with the graphics card and would be fixed at no charge.
The kicker was they also gave me a new DVD drive free. The laptop slid off my lap about 6 months ago and the DVD part of the drive wouldn’t work anymore. It was clear that it had suffered “abuse” as the bezel around the Express card slot was obviously bent.
When I picked up I was told it was taken care of and there would be no charge!
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In the last two months our local Apple store repaired an out of warranty G5 iMac and replaced two out of warranty MacBook Pros (display adaptor problems) for our little family. I was wondering what was going on.
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