Rotten Apple, So Much For "I'm a Mac and I'm a PC"

I am having trouble accepting that my time at this paradise by the sea in Belize is almost up. Now don't get me wrong I love playing poker, but this is hard to beat. The staff here is the best I have seen as far as customer service. Everyone from the concierge to the dive masters has made this a truly excellent vacation. While I'm on the subject of customer service I would like to digress and share a recent experience with perhaps the worst customer service I have ever experienced.

Approximately 4 weeks ago while in Las Vegas I decided to switch to a new MacBook Pro. They had just come out and received god reviews and I had put off getting a new computer long enough. All I really need is a laptop for writing, and online communication, the occasional spreadsheet, I tunes and of course Full Tilt Poker. So I went to the Apple store at Fashion Show mall in Vegas and the sales staff had their way with me up-selling me lots or accessories, including a printer and wireless mouse, procare, mobile me, and one to one. Now it sounded great this procare, which is an extended warranty and allows you to go to the front of the line for service appointments and help. The one to one entitles you to a one on one session every week of the year for training, and the mobile me is a back up system and mobile server which allows you to use any computer to access your 10gigs of stored stuff. Sounds pretty good, well here goes how it seemed to play out. I had trouble with the computer right from the start, where it would quit in the middle of several applications or freeze up. Now I've seen those cute commercials, "I'm a Mac and I'm a PC" you know what I'm talking about?

Then I'm on a flight to LA and the computer overheats and the hard drive gets corrupted, or at least that's what they said at the Apple store, but I get ahead of myself. So the computer dies and I take it back to the Apple store in LA at the Grove and talk to the Concierge, who tells me I have to make an appointment online. I explain it's a new computer and just died. After talking with the store manager my computer gets taken to the back and 45 minutes later one of the geniuses as they are called comes to tell me it was defective and needs to be replaced. They then tell me they can't load in the Microsoft Office Professional I purchased with the computer because I need it there. I explain that it is back in my place in Las Vegas. They then tell me that they have to return and resell me the computer and because the sales tax is higher in California I need to pay the $17 difference. They tell me they can transfer the data and retrieve it from the server in the sky, mobile me. The tell me they can get it done in an hour. I wait and finally get it back, go to the Commerce for the day and when I get back to my room I find that it still doesn't work. None of the programs will open.

The next morning I get back to the store as soon as it opens and I don't recognize a sole in the place. I ask for the manager and a young gentleman comes over and I explain the preceding events. He says they will try and fix it. Not really what I want to hear. If they can't solve this minor of a problem, perhaps Bill Gates should step up the "I'm a PC and that thing is a MAC". Anyway, I leave it and return that evening expecting to finally have the problem solved. I get there and it still doesn't work. I ask can't we just retrieve the data from mobile me? They try and can't seem to make it work and give me the phone number to mobile me and instruct me to call when I get home. At this point I'm thinking I know how postal employees must feel, I say to the manager, now come on you mean to tell me you can't get it working but I should take it as is and hopefully fix it through customer service over the phone, he then tells me that mobile me doesn't have phone support, it's through "Ichat." Finally at my insistence he assigns one of his techs to work on it with me, and believe me it was no easy sell getting him to do that. After 90 minutes we find out that the data on mobile me was corrupted as well, and not retrievable. There goes my last two weeks of work. My book, some blogs, and one Card Player article.

I had to get going, now 5 hours into my current Apple experience, to go play that final table at the Commerce. I was leaving for NY City the next day and asked if they could make me an appointment t the Apple store in Manhattan. The manager says they cannot do that. The tech, who has been very nice, said he worked there previously and would take care of it so they would be all set to wipe the computer clean and start from the beginning. I did have my old laptop in NY, minus the two weeks of data, which was unrecoverably lost. Now on CSI or one of those shows they can always dig out every bit of data even after the computer has been wiped clean, thrown in a fire, then dumped in the ocean, but I digress.

So I show up in the Apple store on 5th Avenue in NY at my 2pm appointment time and a nice tech guy checks in the computer, and we go over all the issues for about 45 minutes. He tells me not to worry they will get it right this time. They are open 24 hours here and should have it ready in a few hours; he assures me that they will call me the moment it is finished.
I don't hear from them that day and the next day at around 2pm I'm starting to get a little anxious, as I'm leaving town the next morning. I call the store and after getting cut off twice I get someone on the phone who tells me they are working on it and will cal me when it is done. I try to explain that the said they would have it yesterday, and he doesn't seem to care. I then call the Apple corporate offices and get one of their customer service people on the phone. I go through the above story and she says hold on let me call over to the store. After 15 minutes on hold she comes back and says they are working on it and will hopefully have it done in time for me. I feel like crying, and decide to go over to the store. I get the manager and he says it's not going to be done in time, what are the things that are really important to get done and which can wait? Needless to say all sharp objects should be moved from my immediate vicinity. I then spent the next 90 minutes with the manager trying to get the machine working satisfactorily. I would say it is working at about 80%; my Itunes is completely screwed up.
I would have to say that this was the worst customer service experience I have ever had. I hope someone from Apple reads this. I lost 2 weeks of data after paying extra for a back up service, spent 15 hours in the store dealing with impolite, ineffective people who seemed to have learned their customer service skills from the department of motor vehicles. Not one person in the whole organization would accept ownership of the problem and work through until a solution was reached.

For more information on Roy Winston, you can visit his website: www.oraclepoker.net or send him an email. The contents presented herein on this blog are purely the opinions of Roy Winston, and are not intended to reflect or promote the opinions of any other person, group, or entity. If you like what I write than thanks for reading, and if not well, thanks anyway.