fun with applecare
April 21st, 2007
So after establishing that my harddrive was indeed dead and dying, I called AppleCare. Until yesterday there had been no negative AppleCare experiences on my part. I had heard some horror stories from others but had never experienced such a blunder. Let's establish some facts here. My macbook is not stock, it has a 160gb drive and 2gb of ram. Those are considered custom upgrades, and this information is attached to my serial number supposedly. So when calling, after providing my serial number, I assume that a person would check to see if the harddrive in question was availible at the applestore they were directing me to. That didn't happen, and we drove over an hour out of our way to be told "Sorry we don't have that here, we could order it or take the laptop and get it back to you". To be fair, every person we talked to was very friendly and helpful. On the flip side, taking a half day from work and driving around to get nothing done right before traveling is not my idea of a good time.
I was understandably angry at this point and decided to spread the love in apple's general direction. The woman I spoke to was very nice and helpful. She informed me that no applestore would have my drive because it was custom. Apparently they do keep a stockpile of parts on hand, but generally not for the custom configurations. Excellent. I'd spent a good part of my day trying to do something that was not possible at the onset.
At this point they are sending me another harddrive, which may or may not arrive before I have to travel again. On the bright side, my bitching got me a $60 gift certificate to the online applestore. The only downside to that, is the fact that we picked up a power adapter from the store before leaving and the certificate can not be used at a brick and mortar store. Good times.
<update>It should be noted that I did mention that I had a 160gb drive and that I wanted to find out where I could get a new drive today if it was possible. I'd call that along with my serial number enough information to provide accurate information. At this point I still have not received the certificate email either. I have received an email for a customer relations survey.</update>
I was understandably angry at this point and decided to spread the love in apple's general direction. The woman I spoke to was very nice and helpful. She informed me that no applestore would have my drive because it was custom. Apparently they do keep a stockpile of parts on hand, but generally not for the custom configurations. Excellent. I'd spent a good part of my day trying to do something that was not possible at the onset.
At this point they are sending me another harddrive, which may or may not arrive before I have to travel again. On the bright side, my bitching got me a $60 gift certificate to the online applestore. The only downside to that, is the fact that we picked up a power adapter from the store before leaving and the certificate can not be used at a brick and mortar store. Good times.
<update>It should be noted that I did mention that I had a 160gb drive and that I wanted to find out where I could get a new drive today if it was possible. I'd call that along with my serial number enough information to provide accurate information. At this point I still have not received the certificate email either. I have received an email for a customer relations survey.</update>
April 21st, 2007 at 06:46 PM Your "understandable anger" seems to've been anything but. You knew your machinery was custom; did you not think to take three seconds and say, "By the way, my situation is slightly special because ... Is this going to be a problem?" Expecting a random customer service person to have all of your information available to them at all times is ... Well, it's something. Mental lapses indeed.
April 22nd, 2007 at 10:24 AM I do expect the service person to check when I provide them with the information necessary to lookup my hardware. That's part of the position, if they can't tell me where I need to go to fix my problem then what use are they? I don't know Apple's policies regarding the Applestore stock, they should. It's a little presumptuous to put the onus on me when I am calling for a repair. I assume that you will have hardware on hand to fix the limited number of configuration's they provide, unless otherwise told. Again, why have customer service people if I have to find the solution to my problem? Thanks for the support Alex.
April 28th, 2007 at 02:48 AM No offense but I would not consider that a negative experience. Applecare tech support agents do not have access to what is and what is not in stock at Apple stores simply because of that fact that there are so many of stores and it would be impractical for them to have access to a constantly dynamic inventory to a specific store. Secondly, the best way to get your portable repaired is through mail-in simply because of the fact that apple stores do not always have specific parts in stock and a lot of times they end up either mailing the unit in or ordering the part themselves. No offense again but I can't believe you actually expected the agent to know what specific parts a specific apple store would have in stock. lol.
April 28th, 2007 at 10:52 AM All of the Apple people were very friendly, but at some point I would expect someone there to know. When I go to Best Buy or CompUSA they seem to be able to find out what store has what I'm seeking easily. They also have their store inventories search-able online. I understand they didn't have the information at Apple, but as a customer, I find that somewhat unacceptable. Considering that there were multiple opportunities to inform me that I needed to send out the laptop or order the part, I don't think I feel too much pity for the company. It just seems like poor coordination. Even with all that, I still like Apple products and software. It's just disappointing to see better service available at other places solely due to the lack of an integrated system to manage these queries.