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Steve Jobs Personally Resolves Customer Complaint
Posted by
samzenpus
on Thu May 03, 2007 08:05 AM
from the steve-jobs-my-dishes-need-to-be-washed dept.
from the steve-jobs-my-dishes-need-to-be-washed dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The Consumerist recently published a story about an Apple customer who went through support hell with a broken Macbook. After escalating the issue up the support chain, and a month wait for his Macbook, the guy gave up and simply wrote Steve Jobs a blistering flame-mail. So, was he surprised when Jobs' executive assistant responded back the next day! He got both a brand new Macbook, as well as his old one to copy the hard drive. The guy also responded in a comment, and he turns out to be a slashdotter! He even wrote a journal entry here about the story."
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Did I miss something? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Did I miss something? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Did I miss something? (Score:5, Funny)
You see there is more than one Steve Jobs and thus his "assistants" are in fact copies of himself. Thought Apple was outsourcing manufacturing to China or somewhere else? Nope, just a cover ploy to hide the fact that they have a manufacturing plant filled with Jobses.
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Re:Did I miss something? (Score:5, Funny)
All dressed in identical black turtleneck sweaterses, my precious.
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Re:Did I miss something? (Score:5, Funny)
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Are you guys talking about Steve Jobs? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Did I miss something? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Did I miss something? (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Did I miss something? (Score:5, Interesting)
It has also survived being dropped from standing height, and having a glass of wine spilled over it.
All that, and it'll run Windows, Mac OS, and Linux. It really has been my dream web development machine, and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend one.
This is my first Apple machine, and since buying it I've managed to persuade work to swap my aging PC for a shiny new Mac Pro, which is quite simply a beast.
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What if (Score:5, Funny)
Steve keeps it real; mum's the word (Score:5, Insightful)
But the more publicity he gets for doing it, and the more people actually try to email him, the less likely he'll be to read and respond, and the less personal it's actually going to get. It's obvious from the numbers. Part of me hates myself for saying this, and I acknowledge that it's elitist as all hell, but I sort of wish these guys (the ones "in the know" about Steve's responsiveness over email) would keep it to themselves. Because if Steve stops answering his email, that's another piece gone of the old Apple spirit.
Of course, I suppose we must all eventually succumb to inevitability—but there's no harm delaying that end, while possible. So please. Enough. Let me suggest we simply appreciate Steve for keeping it real, and not trumpet it all over the blog-o-spierre.
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I completely agree (Score:5, Interesting)
My situation was extreme. I do NOT recommend emailing Mr. Jobs until fully exhausting the Apple support chain. If you have a problem, ask for a supervisor. If the supervisor can't fix it, ask for "customer relations". Call your local Apple store before sending that email (I did). And finally, after a month of hell, if all else fails, well... do a google search and find his current email address.
But please don't waste the dude's time. I would have the same opinion regardless of the CEO or company.
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Flame Mail? (Score:5, Insightful)
You can bet somebody got reamed... (Score:4, Funny)
I wonder if Jobs ever sees these emails (Score:5, Insightful)
I've done this kind of thing myself before (Score:5, Interesting)
On the plus side, it's fantastically effective. A call from anyone at that level - or even their PA - will often go to the head of customer services very quickly, and get the issue resolved in far less time than trying to work your way up through a call centre staffed with people who quite frankly don't much care about any individual customer's complaint.
On the minus side, it's not something you'd want to do terribly often - particularly not with one company - as it would rapidly lose effectiveness. And if you find yourself in a position where you've got to do this more than once, even for separate incidents, maybe they don't need your business that badly anyway.
MIT (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:MIT (Score:5, Insightful)
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Let's not overlook the phrase, "raison d'etre" (Score:5, Funny)
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Now, we wait for the Slashdot follow-up story.... (Score:5, Funny)
[DISCLAIMER: every word of this is BS (duh)]
This might be a special case (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Nice, but (Score:5, Funny)
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And if ... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Letters to the top always produce some effect (Score:5, Insightful)
Thats Richard Branson. He does that kind of thing because it gets in the news and it is much cheaper than paying for advertising. He is a similar kind of charismatic leader, though.
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Re:Personally? (Score:5, Insightful)
Hmmm...I can't seem to find the page on Apple's website that explains how to escalate your problem past the Customer Service monkeys when you can't get it resolved. How is that superior customer service? I think the problem is that we're so used to crappy service that when we get *any* service at all it's considered "superior". I, for one, am not about to applaud Apple for "going above and beyond" when the thing that necessitated it was a complete failure of the system in question.
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