The vision of the Apple retail store model is a beautiful thing: Gorgeous fixtures, interactive demos, a theater and even a tech-support Genius Bar that make technology friendly. The reality is often a bit different, particularly in major cities. The Genius Bar is over-run with customers, and even making an appointment doesn’t ensure prompt service.
It’s a victim of its own success. The good news, though, is that the system can work. Take, for example, the case of my fiancee’s 12″ Powerbook.
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About four months ago, its hard drive started acting flaky, and within a month it crashed and wouldn’t come back to life. We went down to the San Francisco Apple Store, had a Genius look at it, and the machine came back to life just by running Disk Utility, which baffled me, since I had tried it several days earlier.
The machine has never quite been itself since, and it went down hard two weeks ago. We finally took it into the Apple Store on Saturday. The situation was somewhat dire. She received the computer three years ago, almost to the day. Her parents had purchased the extended AppleCare plan, but we couldn’t find the documentation any more. We had a receipt for its purchase, but no guarantees that the plan was ever activated. Worse still, the plan had, at best, a week left on it. And can you imagine what would happen if the hard drive was revived at the store and then it died 8 days later?
As you can imagine, we approached our visit to the Apple Store with some trepidation. And, as usual, the line was moving slowly. Though we had a 5:15 appointment, it took a solid half-hour to be seen. Eventually, we were called up to the counter. A man with a funny name starting with V booted up the machine. A horrible grinding sound hit, and the machine crashed. And crashed and crashed and crashed.
“OK,” he said. “Thank god it’s got a really horrible sound. That way it can definitely get replaced.”
And with that, we were all set. The machine’s off to Elk Grove for repair, and a brand-new hard drive is on its way. We couldn’t believe it. I brought my arguing hat and everything. But when the chips were really down, Apple showed its in-person customer service to be head-and-shoulders above the competition. It made me proud to be a Mac-head.
This is the second Apple product manufactured in 2004 we’ve had die on us in the last six months. Remember, kids. The extended warranty is for your own good.
Pete Mortensen is a design strategist for consulting firm Jump Associates and the co-author of Wired to Care: How Companies Prosper When They Create Widespread Empathy, a book and blog that are significantly more interesting than you might initially think. Pete’s particular Apple avocations are both around design–interface and industrial. Follow him on Twitter!
