I bought an iPhone probably about a year and a half ago. Like any other iPhone owner that you ask… I love it. Tough to bump into someone that doesn’t love their iPhone. I’m not making any huge revelation when I point out that they absolutely did change the game in the mobile telco space when they came out with this phone.
The revolutionary revelation that I have experienced, and want to point out to others, is the level of customer service that Apple has provided to me. This past November, my iPhone out of the blue decided that it would no longer connect up to any Wi-Fi access point. Not at home, not at work, not at Starbucks… not anywhere. For me this was incredibly disappointing as that is my primary method of choice to pull down podcasts, which I love to listen to. I’ve come to love listening to The Java Posse and the Clarke Howard Show on my way to and fro work (along with a litany of other podcasts that I fit in here and there). Granted, you can pull down podcasts via iTunes and drag them onto your phone, but it’s just several more steps to go through that I wish I did not have to. And besides that, I didn’t fork over hard earned cash for mobile equipment that would fail within a year, forcing me to sit back down at a desktop to use all of the functionality of my mobile device.
After Googleing the issue and trying several suggestions to fix it… I decided I had to make a trek to my local Apple Store to visit the “Genius Bar”. For no real reason that I can point to, I’ve always felt that Apple’s labeling their in-store tech support as the “Genius Bar” rather pompous and pretentious. I’d never experienced any of these “Geniuses” before so who was I to judge if they were pretentious or not… maybe they all really are geniuses. Just has a pretentious feel to it to me. Anyways, off I go to the Lenox Mall Apple Store after setting a reservation with one of the tech’s (Note: a reservation is necessary, so make sure to set one at apple.com prior to heading off to the store).
After taking my seat and explaining my dilemma to the technician assigned to me he ran some diagnostics on my phone. All came back to indicate that there was an issue with the phone. And after several reset’s to the phone, the conclusion was that there was no helping this phone of mine. It was just simply not going to authenticate onto any Wi-Fi access points. And of course, this issue is very rare he said… I was just lucky enough to experience the problem. Then the rub came... sort of. After looking up the information in their system via the serial number of the phone, the tech informed me that my phone was 20 days outside of its warranty timeframe. A big resounding Charlie Brown-ish “AaaaUuuuuuGggggHhhhhh” rang through my brain as these words came out of his mouth. How could this be… Why Me… @#*&$*@(!!! As I mentally rolled around in self pity… I almost didn’t catch the next sentence out of his mouth, which was “But, they do give us some discretion over cases that we get. I’m going to give you a new phone and call it a day.” After hearing this, I almost kissed the guy. YES… THERE IS A GOD. Kindness and being human have not been abolished from the American corporate vocabulary. I looked him straight in the eye and said “You’ve just won a customer for life. What is your boss’s name? I would love to press in on him to give you a raise.”
I am pleased to report… I didn’t experience any pompous and pretentious geniuses at the “Genius Bar”… just some really nice people doing a really good job. Taking care of their customer.
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