Sour Apples

Over the years, I have spent a fair amount of time defending my choice to be a Mac person. Despite the naysayers asking me how I could rationalize spending the money on Apple products, I have always jumped to the company’s defense by praising its products. All of the Mac desktops I have purchased in the past decade are still working, I have never experienced the black screen of death or had any of my desktops, laptops or iPhones fail me—until this week. Upon hearing this most people are scratching their heads and thinking, what’s the story here? Technology has a finite life and products fail. So?

To that I would answer, we as consumers have a right to expect the products we buy and invest in will last a reasonable amount of time. In my case, my hard drive died less than a month after I bought my new computer. Companies that sell us products should stand behind the products they sell rather than having a complacent attitude that we will continue giving them our business—just because of their brand name. While the cost of my hard drive replacement was covered under warranty it still cost me over $200 to have my brand new $2,000 computer returned to me with all my data intact.

To me, this is really a story about earning brand loyalty and a company’s willingness to do right by its customers. Given the chance to make this right, the folks at AppleCare chose not to go the extra mile. The supervisor I spoke with (you know the type, the ones they send to Army Special Forces for training on how not to break under enemy pressure) was immovable on her positions and kept repeating the phrase, “only the hard drive is covered and it is the user’s responsibility to back up their work.”

“Yes, I know that,” I responded, but countered that if they had not sold me a faulty drive to begin with I wouldn’t be in this position 30 DAYS AFTER I PURCHASED THE COMPUTER.

I even mustered my best customer satisfaction speech—the one about how much money I have spent at their company over the years, how I have defended the cost of their products to innumerable people, how they should stand behind what they sell, etc. They weren’t biting. Apparently it wasn’t worth $200 in the eyes of Apple to do whatever it took to return me back to being a satisfied and loyal customer.

Throughout our many communication vehicles at Grocery Headquarters we often talk about the importance of building customer loyalty, keeping customers and attracting new ones. To me, retailers of all types benefit from hearing about cross industry experiences like mine because irrespective of topic, the heart of the matter is the same. Regardless of whether we are talking about red and green apples that make a healthy snack or the kind of apples with hard drives that sit on your desk—no matter how you slice it, selling bad apples is simply bad for business.