Why Everyone Loves Apple

realtorperson writes "Why, at least the Apple users, love Apple? According to a recent article, the pure and simple reason is customer service and overall experience. The author writes, 'When Apple competitors are focused on cost reduction to increase profitability, Apple is investing resources to enhance its relationship with its customers. To me, that's impressive. Unfortunately, there are too many companies in the market that could care less about their customers, but Apple is determined and committed in delivering the experience and not just the product. It's regrettably amusing that Apple competitors are working hastily to develop iPod clones to reap in success, but what many of them fail to comprehend is that it's not necessarily the iPod that makes Apple successful, but rather its customer service.'"

"Could care less"

[CmdrGravy]

How is it a bad thing if other companies could care less about their customers ? I'd hate to a customer of a company which did care less about me than one of those that could do but didn't.

Language nazi

[Tx]

Unfortunately, there are too many companies in the market that could care less about their customers

Ok, I've got karma to burn ;). The phrase is "Couldn't care less". As in, it's not possible to care less than they do. "Could care less" implies that they could actually care less than they do. Why is this so hard for people to get right?

Re:"Could care less"

[Anonymous Coward]

In other words, it should say "couldn't care less".

Absolutely True

[BladesP9]

This is absolutely true. I've bought many macintosh computers for the companies I have owned and worked for.

During lean times we would use eBay to buy computers and equipment for employees. One occasion in particular I bought a strawberry iMac as a work station for a designer advertised as new in the box only to find out the machine was two years past the date of manufacture. As a matter of policy, Apple only honors the warranty within I believe 90 days of the date of manufacture. After a few attempts to repair the machine unsuccessfully, Apple replace it with a new (at the time) iMac that had much better specifications at no charge. Just recently, they gave me a lot of good advice and support on a lemon iMac I received from MacMall.

I value customer service primarily because I pride myself on giving it - and it's nice to deal with a company then genuinely seems to care about it's customers. I'm an Apple customer for life partially because I prefer their product, but mostly because they treat me like a human being instead of a credit card number.

Re:Apple's Customer service is great.

[zoeblade]

Really, portable music players that use lossy codecs are only designed to play finished songs. If you want to record bits of solo work and glue them together, you should save them in a lossless format such as .aif, and copy them across to your fellow group members by putting them onto a portable drive (such as the iPod can be, but there are better ones that aren't also music players) as regular files rather than as songs they should play.

Unless you just want to listen to each other's noodlings as they are, without futher modification, in which case, you can put your iPod in any computer running OS X, close iTunes back down when it automatically pops up, go into the Terminal, cd on over to /Volumes/[The name of your iPod] and cp the files across.

Re:Spelling error

[szembek]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astroturfing [wikipedia.org]

Re:Tripe

[revscat]

This article is simple shilling for Apple. Anyone who has actually had an encounter with Apple's customer service would know that they're exactly the same as any other manufacturer.

My experiences have been different.

A few weeks ago I needed to order a battery for my wife's laptop, a slightly older Powerbook. I had ordered one from their website, but it was the wrong one, so I called them to replace it. Well, they had a hard time figuring out which battery I needed, and so after being put on hold for 15 minutes I hung up with the intention of calling them back the next Monday (this was on a Saturday.)

Well, about 10 minutes later they called me back to tell me my battery was on its way. FedEx delivered it that coming *Monday*. I have never had a company call me back, and I think that ranks right up there with the best customer services experiences I have ever had.

Re:Apple's Customer service is great.

[totalbasscase]

Except that when you browse an iPod as a portable disk, all the music loaded onto it via iTunes is stored in a hidden folder called iPod_Control, randomly separated into 50-some-odd sequentially numbered subfolders, with the artist name removed from the mp3's filename. And that's just for mp3s; AACs are a whole different barrel of wax.

Still, I find myself using my good old 3rd generation 10GB iPod as my backup device of choice, even though in its ripe old age it makes all sorts of funny whirring noises and takes longer to transfer a file via firewire than it would via... I don't know, a Palm to Palm infrared link.

But hey, it's plug and play! Wooo.

Re:Best customer service

[91degrees]

No, he got a new Mac Mini because there is a statutory minimum 12 month warranty within the UK,

No there isn't.

Re:Language nazi

[neurovish]

It's an idiomatic phrase who's common usage has strayed from its literal meaning, is that such a hard concept to grasp? All languages have such phrases where the implied meaning is based upon the context in which it is often used instead of a rigid literal interpretation. Perhaps you guys need to step away from your computers for a second and learn how people communicate?

Re:Apple's Customer service is great.

[Brian Kendig]

Now - we should be able to pool all our music together. But try doing it using iTunes - its on the verge of impossible.

Turn on your iPod's disk mode, through the preferences in iTunes. Copy your sound clips to the iPod. Bring your iPod to your friend's house and copy the sound clips off it. No problem.

Are you complaining that there's no GUI way to copy sound clips directly out of the iPod's music repository? That's like complaining there's no easy way to get at your toaster's heating coils. You're taking an appliance that does a specific job very well, and complaining that it doesn't give you a lot of options for doing something it's not intended to do. iPod is designed to sync up with the iTunes library, and I like that degree of simplicity. It's not designed to let you copy music in and out of its library by hand.

Yes, if you connect your iPod to someone else's computer and you're not paying attention, you might accidentally let the other person's iTunes replace your song library with his. I don't like the eagerness with which iTunes does this. But the fix is simple: bring your iPod back to your computer and plug it in and sync it up again.

Re:Apple is in the image and style biz.

[The Phantom Blot]

Buy Apple and you'll look and be cool!

Drink the right beer and bikini babes will have sex with you! This is hardly an Apple-specific approach. It's the fundamental thesis of all modern consumer-oriented advertising. The reason you see no ads extolling the ROI of iPod ownership is that iPods aren't business tools.

Re:Apple is in the image and style biz.

[JWallyR]

The people that were wearing just the ear buds are just like the easily-led people who follow any other trend. Have no doubt about it, there are a lot of followers and a lot of stupid people in the world, but it's not Apple's fault for making products about which people become passionate.

Think about it this way- how many fads have you seen come and go within a year? 6 months? 3 months? Now think about the fact that the iPod is in its 5th or 6th generation (too lazy to look it up exactly right now) and has yet to have its dominance be realistically challenged in the MP3 (or MP3 wannabe, see WMV, ATRAC, etc.) player market.

Sure, that first guy in his prep school to bust out the earbuds had a new toy to show off, and maybe "mommy and daddy" bought it for him and he didn't really know or care if it was good. A few more people buy iPods, everybody realizes that they're not that great, and another ill-planned product vanishes into the void.

Now look at the MP3 player market. You're trying to tell me that EVERYBODY has been duped by Apple, and that OMG WHITE EARBUDS ARE SO TEH COOL! that Apple (and the iPod) are making it solely on image and marketing?

Oh, and the reason that you don't see hipsters listening to music in commercials for IBM, Oracle, and SAP (and the reason you don't see suits and boardrooms and ROI charts in Apple commercials) are because they are two different products for drastically different markets. IBM, Oracle and SAP are marketing "business solutions" to businesses; Apple is marketing personal computers and personal music players.

Also, I'm just going to say that I used OS 9 extensively, and for a while in preference to OS X while games and programs made the transition, and I have never had nearly as many problems with OS 9 as with any version of the Windows operating system up to that point.

And no, Linux or BSD or whatever else aren't viable options for 95% of home computer users.

Drink Some More Kool-Aid

[Anonymous Coward]

As a person who used to be an Apple tech I can tell you first hand they are not known for "friendly" technical support. Most of Apple's tech support are like Apple: crass and pretentious. This is BS corporate propaganda.

Re:Best customer service

[daBass]

You got a good deal. As other have said, law requires them to fix or replace it, but doing it one the spot - instead of sending it to a service center as PC World would do - and transfering your data went beyond their statutory obligations and you are right to be chuffed about it.

The jury is still out for me on their service. I went back one saturday early morning with a dead Mighty Mouse. You'd think they wouldn't quible about replacing a £35 mouse but they told me to go to the Genius Bar. I went straight back down as I wasn't going to queue behind 20 other people who didn't know how to work their iBook or iPod.

I had to plead with them to just plug it in and see it didn't work and not just a config problem on my Mac. They finally did, but instead of just shutting up about it the manager type person kept stressing how much of a favour they were doing me and how much they were bending the rules.

Apple is pretty good

[penguin-collective]

Yes, Apple zealots vastly exaggerate the build quality, performance, and innovation of Apple products. Nevertheless, Apple generally ends up near the top in customer satisfaction and reliability ratings. Combine that with good styling, good marketing, and decent engineering, and it's no surprise that they are doing well. They don't have to make flawless machines in order to appeal to people and in order to be worth the premium, they just need to be noticeable better than most of the competition in several, and they are that.

(Here [pcworld.com] is a recent PC World ranking.)

Re:Best customer service

[gormanly]

No, they have much better than this (in the UK at least).

The standard deal is a 1 year warranty with global repair or replace (except for iMac and PowerMac which have only onsite repair or replace), 90 days phone tech support and 14 days return and refund for any reason at all. AppleCare plans extend the warranty and phone support to 3 years, for about £100.

Re:Apple's Customer service is great.

[tpgp]

What?

I'm over at my drummer's house:

Drummer: Dude, lets get all this music together.
tpgp: I'm not sure how we can do it.
Brian Kendig: Actually, nobody wants to share music around, its as rare as people wanting to play with their toaster's heating element. tpgp, you're going to have to go back home, recopy all the files that are allready on your ipod and come back here.
Drummer: Whoa? You serious dude? Everyone likes sharing music. Why does tpgp have to go all the way across town to copy the files again? They're allready here.

The iPod's UI as a standalone device is a thing of beauty. But once you connect it to itunes things go to hell. It prevents you from doing something the vast majority of portable music player owners would like to do.

Re:Best customer service

[petard]

Though as others have comment - I suspect he's confused warranty with "refund for any reason", in which case they weren't doing him any favours. Indeed, I'd consider it rather poor customer service that they tried to pretend it was too late to replace it. (Can anyone else confirm - do Macs really only have a 14 day warranty, or not?)

Like most machines Macs have a 1-year warranty by default with the option to purchase an extended warranty. But you don't seem to understand warranty repairs. When you bring a machine in for service, they don't just grab a new one out of retail stock and give it to you. That's only possible during the "refund for any reason" period. For a warranty repair (which is what you have to do outside the refund window) you give it to a service tech, they diagnose which component has failed and they replace that. Often you have to wait a day or two for your repair. More if parts are backordered.

So yes, the Apple store employee bent the rules in order to make sure that a customer had a better experience than he or she would have if Apple had enforced the rules to the letter. That's good customer service.

could NOT care less. could NOT care less

[Anonymous Coward]

"Unfortunately, there are too many companies in the market that could care less about their customers"

While I'm sure it's true there are companies that could, indeed, care less about their customers, the phrase is "could NOT care less". "there are ... companies ... who could not care less".

Get it? "could care less" means, well, the amout of care they have could be less.

</rant-o-the-day>

Re:Apple's Customer service is great.

[sh00z]

But they don't - because their corporate partners are more important then their customers wishes.

This is an oversimplistic way of looking at the situation, and one that lays entirely too much blame at the feet of Apple. Go and look back to the very first pocket mp3 players. The RIAA vs Diamond Rio lawsuit (references here [pcworld.com], here [findlaw.com], and here [riaa.com] is now the legal precedent that Apple and everyone else is following. They are simply not legally allowed to make it trivial to transfer files back off of an iPod. If portable, transferrable music is your goal, just to buy your favorite flavor of Flash-based memopry card (Compact Flash, SD, SmartMedia, Memory Stick, etc., $US 40 for 1 GB) and a USB reader ($US 7-8). Do not accuse Apple of being unfriendly to consumers when it's been demonstrated that if they were to take your approach, they would soon be faced with an injunction that would PREVENT them from selling ANYTHING to consumers.

Why not use EphPod?

[Anonymous Coward]

Check out ephPod [ephpod.com] this takes all the hassle out of managing your iPod. You can sync with a folder, rename tracks directly on the iPod if the tags are wrong rather than removing and replacing and also copy songs back to your HD with a filename format of your chosing. It's much faster than both iTunes and MusicMatch. The screen updating can be a little intermitant so it pays to be a little patient when you move large amounts of data. Never liked iTunes, used MusicMatch before Yahoo! bought it and Apple dropped MusicMatch support. Stuck I found EphPod and have never looked back, EphPod does everything I need!

Re:Apple's Customer service is great.

[eclectic4]

"But try doing it using iTunes - its on the verge of impossible (in fact most ipod owners are afraid to plug their ipod in to someone's computer in case all the files are delete)."

You should be modded down, because this is user error... on your part. You will be prompted by iTunes which will say (paraphrased), "This iPod is synched with a different iTunes, would you like to erase this iPod and use this new iTunes to synch with?" You then have the option to click "No". If you want to grab music from othe people's iTunes, just set your iPod to manually update, and you can grab music from 100 different iTunes. If you wish to give your friends your music, just plop the actual mp3's onto your iPod as data and give it to them. Your entire beef is due to you not knowing how to use your iPod.

Mod him down, now...

Correct me if I'm wrong but

[jt007]

...you can choose whether you want iTunes to automatically synchronise with your iPod when you plug it in to your PC. The information that decides whether to synchronise automatically or not is actually stored on the iPod, which means that if you don't want to synchronise and plug it into your mate's PC then it won't completely wipe your iPod and put his Britney albums on there instead.

I've got my iPod set up so I have to move songs manually (I don't really have the need to store some 8000 songs on my PC) and I've plugged it into various other PC's all without problems.

Re:Apple loves their customers cash.

[eclectic4]

"If you have a problem with one of their systems or an iPod (like I did) you can damn well forget it unless the problem becomes widespread enough to hit popular tech pages."

This is a joke, right? You have just described every "other" computer/software company in the world. Now, with Apple, you can go get help for free *gasp!* yes, for free at a genius bar near you for any little thing your heart desires (iPod, Software, Hardware, etc...). Do that at your local Dell mall kiosk and watch me in the corner laughing. If you do not live near an Apple store (if not, just wait a bit...), give Apple Care a call and they will either help you over the phone, or send out a box next day air to pick up your in-warranty machine/ipod/whatever...

Of course they want the money. Apple, or any other company, wouldn't exist if it were different. It's everything else they do that others do not that make them different. In fact, it's the entire reason for this story.

Seriously, did I miss your joke or something?

Still overpriced and a nightmare to trouble-shoot

[Anonymous Coward]

You sure may look cool, but at a pretty high cost. Also, if it doesn't work, you're screwerd.

Here in Brazil, Apple computers are still way overpriced. Apple Brazil, for whatever reason, likes their prices artificially high. It's actually cheaper buy any Apple product from some random store in the US or elsewhere which sells on the internet, pay the shipping costs, all those damn high taxes, and it's still a lot cheaper than buy from any store that deals with Apple Brasil. Hell, I think you could even resell imported stuff for less than Apple Brasil and make some profit, even though you're paying full retail price plus taxes.

Don't get me wrong, I love my iPod and it's pretty features (smart playlists, nice interface, etc). But once I had this crazy idea to try buying an Apple computer. It worked pretty damn well, that's for sure, and one day, I decided to play with a Linux LiveCD on it... As an Apple newbie, I didn't knew I had to hold Option-C to boot from the CD. Ok, no problem, I would just log on OS X, open Firefox and search Google. Then for whatever reason, just before the login screen OS X kept reading the CD and stopped respongind. I couldn't reboot the thing, it was completly locked, so I had to pull the plug off the wall. Turned it on and OS X wouldn't boot anymore, the instalation CD wouldn't boot either, even though the Linux LiveCD booted just fine. Then I learned about the "wonders" of OpenFirmware. I had to reboot & Command-Option-P-R a few times, then Command-Option-N-V, then Command-Option-O-F and type a few weird commands (the thing didn't even had a help menu, luckily, I had a working PC ready), just to be able to boot the OS X install CD & reinstall the whole thing.

After all that, I don't believe that "it's more user-friendly than any PC" crap. How can anyone think OpenFirmware is actually better than a BIOS? Maybe I'm just used to PCs, but whenever I screwed things really badly, I could enter the BIOS, load the default settings, and boot from a CD, then try to recover or reinstall with just a reboot or two, not ~5 reboots, disconnecting the power cable, etc. I imagine how much "fun" it would be if it was a laptop.

Speaking of which, those MacBooks sure seem nice. They're even cheaper than a Sony Vaio with Core Duo around here (ASUS has the better price here), but that's if you save yourself the trouble of trying to get it from Apple Brasil, wich must be charging something like the price of a brand new popular car (like they did when the PowerBook G4 was released). Anyway, they're still overpriced. Why can't Apple sell a cheaper laptop? I don't need a gaming laptop, I already own a gaming PC, I just want something portable (not those big&heavy HP Pavilions) and that comes with a battery that lasts more than just 90 minutes.

Re:Apple loves their customers cash.

[kuzb]

First let me start off by saying I'm not a Mac supporter - personally, I hate the machines. However, I must say that my iPod experience is much different than yours. I reflashed mine trying to put a linux firmware on it and bricked the thing. I figured, "ah, what the hell" and sent it back to Apple. Not only did they send me a replacement to a unit where I was clearly at fault, but they first sent me a self-addressed, postage paid box with packaging and even *tape* to send it back to them. Then they had the delivery company pick it up from my office. Turnaround for the whole thing? 1 business week - and it was going halfway across Canada to get there.

I still don't like Steve Jobs, and I really don't like Macs. However, in all fairness, my experience with their customer support was nothing short of surprising. Perhaps I just got the right Apple store, or maybe someone at the company just had a good day. I don't know.

Re:Customer Service was out to lunch

[diamondsw]

I would argue they don't scratch easily, and people were abusing the hell out of them because they were tiny. Perhaps they weren't as durable as the mini (that thing was indestructible), but they aren't the fragile things asshats made them out to be.

From a GeekSquad Agent

[ModernGeek]

Yeah, at BestBuy you will end up getting another machine, and we charge $59 for a data transfer from one machine to another. If you have a "Service Plan" on a computer, it will be sent off to a service center to be repaired, and will be back in about 2 weeks. If you have software problems, you can end up spending over $200 to get it cleaned off. How much does the genius bar charge? Of course, GeekSquad is there to capitalize on people's problems, and the GeniusBar is there to help people. I hate my job, I can't wait till I'm out of school.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Best customer service

[rjrjr]

I had a similar experience in San Francisco. An iPod I bought came with a broken FireWire cable (it was a while ago). I figured I'd show it to someone, they'd say "gee, it's broken," I'd be given a fresh cable and head home. Instead I got the same stern explanation that I needed to wait on line for an hour and a half. Yeah right. I sucked it up and just went home angry.

On the other hand, at the Palo Alto store (just a few blocks from Steve's house) I've exchanged entire iPods beyond their no-questions return date because my wife changed her mind about the color, no wait, not an eye batted. The different retail locations really seem to have distinct personalities.

Re:Best customer service, or basic consumer rights

[coolgeek]

Ok Fritz, Perhaps this will drive the point home.

I own a 30" HD Cinema Display purchased as a refurb, and a ViewSonic 20" purchased new. I paid $2099 for the 30" and $1299 for the 20" (when it was new). Given their respective pixel densities, I paid $0.051 per pixel for the 30" and $0.067/pixel for the 20".

Both of the displays have had to go in for repair. Both companies honored my "basic consumer rights", however I believe you will find that their styles vary widely.

The 30" would intermittently get an abundance of white pixels. I contacted Apple, they overnighted me a box. The next day I put the display and some photos of the failure mode in the box and called Airborne who picked it up that day. It was at the factory the following day where they replaced the panel and the cable and overnighted it back to me the same day. Total down time: approx 40 hours. Cost: $0.

Now, here's the story of the 20" repair. Basically, the inverters are failing. I contacted ViewSonic, spoke to a tech who didn't seem to understand my explanation that after power up, I could see a flickering image of my computer's desktop for about 3 seconds, much like a faulty fluorescent light fixture, then the screen would go black and the power LED stays green, and yes the cables are screwed down and firmly inserted. After about 10 minutes, she told me her computer was fubar'd, took my number and said she would have to call me back. I waited 6 hours, no return call. So I called back. Next guy says sure, here's your RMA number, you can ship it to us or drop it off at our place. You also have to fax your proof of purchase to this number. Note he did not specify any sequence to these steps.

ViewSonic is about 20 miles away from me, and I wanted to get out for a drive (and I did not have a box), so I dropped it off. I had previously taken this same unit in for repair, and they accepted it with just the RMA number. Not so this time. When I was at the factory, I was then informed they could not accept my display because nobody had approved it for receipt. I showed her the photocopy of my store receipt I had brought with me, but no dice. She tells me she has no authority to override the system, then pointed at the phone, yes an extra phone on the service desk which was oriented to face the customers. I'm guessing they need the phone a lot. So I call tech support again, give them the RMA number, tell them my situation and that they had responsibility for not properly instructing me about the sequence of faxing and returning. I ask, can you please fix this for me so I can drop the monitor off? Basically, somebody needed to push a button to enable the receiving clerks software to accept the barcode scan from my monitor. On hold for 10 minutes. The guys tells me sorry he can't do anything. I ask to speak to a supervisor. 10 minutes, sorry there is supervisor available. I tell him I'll be OK if he can overnight me a prepaid shipping box to my home, I'll send it then. 10 minutes on hold, sorry we can't send you the box. I then tell him if I have to go home I will be suing them in small claims court for damages due to their negligence. 10 minutes on hold, and still he can't do anything to help me. He says after all that time on hold that the problem is between me and the clerk. I tell the clerk that was the last thing he said, and she was flabbergasted. She says I don't have any way to do that. So she calls up tech support via the same 800 number (I heard the same voice prompts while she had it on speaker), gets through to a supervisor, who finally after she explains the situation 3 times, pushes the appropriate buttons to set whatever flag in their RMA database. Nearly an hour later, they accept my monitor.

As for the repair, well, how do you think that goes? It will be 7-14 BUSINESS Days for them to repair my monitor, at which point, they will ship the unit back to me via ground. Total down time: so far, about 11 days, and I still don't have my monitor back. Just to replace some cra

Re:Apple's service is not that great.

[Queer Boy]

The Very Common Logic Board problem with iBooks had nothing to do with failure of the board. Thanks for making that shit up. It was a problem with the ATI chip that caused video problems. I know, I had it. It was from iBooks produced in 2002. They STILL will let you replace the logic board if you get that problem. Thanks for making THAT shit up. G4 iBooks have had no common problem.

As for iPods, Apple has a 90 day warranty that covers almost everything (things like screens and power supplies are not covered) then they have a one year limited warranty where it depends on if it's a defect or that you are damaging the product, since both are gratis, it's up to Apple to find out whether there is a defect in the product or that you should not be let around electronics, and it sounds like the latter.

I dropped my 30GB 3G iPod and got the sad iPod and Apple replaced it no questions asked, 6 months after I got it.

Re:For the love of God...

[Anonymous Coward]

In fact the "rule" about split infinitives was modeled, rather stupidly, on the Latin grammar for infinitives; that is, Latin has a particular conjugation for infinitives that only uses one word (which escapes me now, the second principle part of the verb, perhaps??). The medieval English grammarians then decided that since the word that meant "to _verb_" was all together (since it was, in fact, one word), the English words "to" "_verb_" should not ever separated by an adverb or anything else... As I understand it, the standards have recently changed (in the past 40 years?) as they have finally realized how silly it all is...

Regardless, I personally always thought "To boldly go where no man..." always had a better ring to it than "To go boldly where no man..." Oh well.

The title is incorrect.

[ericbrow]

NOT everyone loves apples, as the comments reflect. Those who believe so need to get out more.

My reasons for not liking appleas are many. My best example being a lightning strike at a client's home. One iMac and one Dell. Both network cards were bad. Ten minutes and $45 later, the Dell was up and going. Eight days and $850, and the apple came back from an authorized repair center never to act quite the same (client's words, not mine).

They are not more stable. "Better" is relative. They are pretty shinny things. I prefer a platform I can upgrade, and find software and hardware for. If I don't like the OS, I like a wide variety of choices to replace it with. This just is not currently available for the mac. All this, and you have to pay more, as in "A fool and their money are soon parted."