Shock And Awe: Apple Customer Service

Nothing like a good slap in the face customer service style to make you really wake up and realize that there’s a whole Major League game of customer service occurring before our very eyes. I’ve been having an itch lately to purchase an Apple product. After having tinkered with custom PCs throughout my youth, I’m finally at the stage where everything just feels so complex that I just want my computing experience to work, be seamless, and have design and intuitiveness come first, rather than being able to tear everything apart piece by piece. I decided to reward myself by purchasing an iPad this evening and was pretty much blown away by my experience thus far.

Working in customer service and dealing with people all day tends to make you hyper aware of the service that you receive from other companies. I’m usually pretty picky when I leave reviews or give feedback unless I’m really blown away. I feel so inclined to talk about this experience that I’ve decided to go beyond reviews and write an entire blog post about this awesome service experience. On all fronts during my online checkout process, an Apple associate was immediately available at the click of a button or a phone call to answer any questions that I had. Here’s a quick run down:

• 8pm purchase time: I have a few questions about purchasing the iPad and lo and behold, there’s a “chat now” button within the checkout screen. Now, I think to myself, this is Apple, they probably have a million people trying to chat at once, surely I will wait at least 5 minutes. Wrong. I did two chats, and both were answered immediately by an associate who by some feat of miracles, responded immediately and quickly to any and all questions.
• 8:15pm I messed up: Doh! Cue to the email confirmation of my order and I realize that I slipped up on the spelling of my name. Don’t ask me how, I’m not sure. I call up Apple on their customer service line, and just like chats, my call was answered immediately after I gave my order number. No drawn-out verification of this and that; just my address, name, and the change I want to make. I’m feeling pretty good now after ending my conversation, ready to pick up my shiny new iPad Air tomorrow at one of the local Apple Stores, then it gets even more awesome.
• 8:30pm Shock and Awe: I get another email from Apple, related to my conversation I just had. There’s something wrong with this email though. It says next day shipping, due to be delivered tomorrow. I scramble to check my invoice online, and I was not charged…At this point, I’m kind of flabbergasted. Did something get screwed up? Am I still having to use my precious gas and time tomorrow to drive to a store, or did someone really just decide to overnight my iPad free of charge? I call Apple back up, get an immediate person on the line, and confirm that yeah, it got changed to overnight shipping, and he has no idea why. Neither do I, and I’m not complaining.

Here I am, all smug thinking that I am a studmuffin of customer service, and my entire perception of even “good” customer service gets completely blown out of the water. When you think you’ve reached the top of your game, think again. There’s always an experience out there to show you how you can continuously improve your customer service beyond anyone’s wildest imaginations. This experience has really opened up a new paradigm for me for an “ideal” model of customer service, what’s yours?

[custom_author=derricka]