Another Apple Support Win
As I mentioned a while back (not here, my blogging has been lacking lately), my power cord for my laptop frayed itself down to the wire. So I made myself an appointment at the Apple Store down the road from my work, and went in today to hopefully deal with it.
As expected, it was (mostly) typical Apple customer service. I arrived at the store about five minutes before my time, found a blue-shirted dude, gave him my name and waited a few minutes for him to get someone. When the guy arrived (Corey), I showed him the cord, pointed out the fray, and he said “yup, I see what you mean.” After giving him the serial number for my laptop (which I’d thoughtfully snapped a picture of with my phone before I had left in the morning (didn’t want to have to lug it out as well, and I knew they’d want it from previous visits), he took the cable, disappeared for a couple of minutes, and arrived back with a brand new power cord for me. No cost, no fuss, no fighting or complaining.
I can only thing of one negative to this, that being making an appointment ahead of time. I can understand it completely (there are a lot of people coming in for help, and not having some sort of order or system would make it insane…. I have been slipped in before though, after a bit of sweet talking, so it’s not 100% draconian). Other than that, I doubt that there’s much more that could have gone better.
Note that this is for a 2 and a half year old laptop without any sort of extended warranty. I’m not sure if they have a “if it’ll potentially electrocute the customer give it to them for free” policy, or that if you aren’t being a total dick they just give it to you because it costs them a couple of bucks but gives them satisfied customers who will pass news of the service on to their friends and family (like I am now).
I wonder if you could get this for another laptop. If I had bought a Dell or HP at Future Shop or London Drugs I can see it being free to replace, but I’d guess that FS/LD doesn’t carry stock for all the laptops they carry, so they’d send you to Dell or HP. I don’t know of a Dell or HP brick-and-mortar store, so while I’m sure you could do this at one of them, you’d have to find it first. Something to ask about the next time I’m in one browsing…
