André Torkveen's blog

Letter from Apple CEO Steve Jobs

Surprising public health news from the luminary Jobs himself, just a day before MacWorld kicks off - without him on the podium.

Will this rather personal open message put an end to the endless series of speculations, speculations and speculations?

Another disturbing story about Apple Support

I should probably say up front that this story ENDED well for me as well though. But after I had read Tar's Let down by Apple... post, I felt my story should be told too, because these pieces sadly underscore each other (the following is a slightly modified copy of my original comment to Tar's blogpost):

~~~

From one Mac-head to another:

I had a somewhat similar experience less than a month ago. Similar in the sense that I had to «sling a gun» to get somebody’s attention!

The story goes like this: Because my old free ISP/e-mail provider has been acquired just to be shut down, I’ve had to switch from what has been my primary e-mail address for more than a decade! NOT fun, but in hindsight at least it’s been a valuable experience (...meaning that I’ve learned something along the way). ALL aspects of my personal online presence; including asymmetric keys for PGP and PKI, PayPal -- basically the whole nine yards -- were tied to this one particular account (plagued by almost no spam, I might add).

Then it turned out that everything BUT my Apple Account (the one used at e.g. iTunes Music Store) could be easily changed; the rest of the issues can be summed up as just a pile of undesirable work. But the Apple Account caused me headaches! I had multiple calls to Support, just to be met with apathetic shoulder shrugging! I could not believe the arrogance! Not take responsibility to fix a customer case? Not even WANTING to try?

Subsequently, I sat down and wrote an angry letter, stating I would NOT accept being alienated from my purchased music library ...just because Apple wouldn’t implement an ID switch the way that the documentation promises? One more thing; I let them know that unless I saw results within a given date (several weeks ahead; just in time to escape from a potential account deadlock situation) I’d be prepared to involve both mass media and Norwegian consumer public affairs (in Norwegian: Forbrukerrådet) ...which BTW Apple doesn’t have the best relations to in the first place. Besides, it so happens that I know people who confirmed they’d be glad to take the story «for a ride», if Apple should spill their chance to clean their act. But I didn’t tell Apple that last part; this would be their chance to solve the case somewhat gracefully.

Yes I know; when it comes to Apple’s FairPlay DRM, there’s also stuff like DoubleTwist. Some consider this a «cure», but unless I’m forced in the oposite direction, I want to be nice and play by the book.

Anyway, to ensure they dealt with it I followed up my angry letter with a phone call to their national branch office. That made Apple put a decent customer relations representative on the case (her name was/is Erika von Gegerfelt and I sincerely hope someone at Apple reads this and gives her the credit she deserves ...and educate some of her colleagues). Contrary to the other reps, Erika had a structured and creative approach, stood by, pushed it further, followed up, etc. And then: Everything turned out fine.

The reason why I wrote this is that initially, several rounds with Apple Support resulted in as much help as a knee-jerk. Zilch. I wondered if they expect troubles to cease simply by holding their breath until the other party gives in?

    This should be considered a wake-up call:
    - Why wait until the customer has turned mad?

Let me add this: If a matter can’t be fixed I don't have problems dealing with reality. OK, it may be difficult, but sometimes that’s how things go. However, I will NOT tolerate plain apathy when it comes to dealing with true client woes! The fact that Apple is among the global leaders in online services should provide customers with some degree of assurance that they WILL take relevant actions whenever needed. At the end of the day, that is a foundation principle for continuous improvement -- and a prerequisite for any learning organization, right? 

It’s beside the point here so I won’t go into details on how the case was solved. But let me know if you’d care to know.