A Business Perspective on Switching from Microsoft Windows to Apple - Part 5 of 7

When It’s Broke…

We’ve had some real-world experience in this.  When our Apple laptop broke, it was no problem getting it completely replaced.  We didn’t have to go through three or four iterations with tech support people who spend an hour on the phone asking us the same darn idiotic questions before finally, months later, replacing our defective unit.

When your Apple computer breaks, you bring it into the store where you get a positive experience.  With a Dell or HP computer, there’s no store to bring it too (by that, I mean a Dell or HP store… Office Depot or Best Buys doesn’t count).   In the Microsoft/Intel world, you spend forever on the phone with some idiot representative who plays 21 questions with you and you’re diving deep into your box trying things that he/she suggests.  In the Microsoft/Intel world, my time is worth nothing… it’s free to them!  Sorry… I don’t view it that way.

Maybe if I have the right warranty, I can get someone out to fix my computer, which I’ve had happen about a half-dozen times with different computer makers.  In every case that I experienced, they came out, diagnosed my computer but didn’t have the parts with them.  They had to order them.  Meanwhile my box was a brick just sitting there until the parts arrived and the tech person could make the time to come back.  Not so in the Apple camp where I drop it off and don’t have to deal with this headache.  Even if it takes just as long, it’s fewer steps for me.

Let me put this another way.  When your car needs major fixing, you drop it off and go somewhere else.  You’re not asked to get under the hood, get dirty and try to diagnose the thing with the mechanic looking over your shoulder.  You don’t have to go through the warranty shuffle to find out if that part and/or labor is covered and how much you’ll pay out of pocket.

Now that’s something I really appreciate.  No wonder Apple’s sales are so good.

Customer Service?

We all know customer service is dead in America.  No, let me amend that to add “outside of the Apple stores.”  Take a look at the ratio of Apple store personnel to square feet leased.  You won’t get that at the Sony store in the same mall or other retailers.  Yes, there are lots of people in there, but that’s a chicken-or-the-egg question.  The point here is that I’d rather have a store full of people mostly looking for themselves and select a representative rather than dealing with navigating a corporate telephone menu hoping to get the right person.  Maybe it’s a humanistic thing with me, but I don’t think so.  If you walk into an Apple store with a little thing, just bring your computer and they will fix it right there.  You may wait a little while as they take it to the back and work at it on the bench, but so what?  I don’t have to schlep the thing down to the UPS Store, pay for a box with popcorn in it, pay for the shipping, wait for it to be fixed and then hope it doesn’t get broken in shipping back to me or stolen from my front door when I’m away.  My friend, there is no comparing solving your little problems almost instantaneously at Apple compared to the PC camp.

In the next part, I’ll explore why medium and large size businesses haven’t, and won’t, adopt the Apple.

John Simpson, MAI