Apple Customer Care - Great Experience

I have cribbed recently about how Apple does not care about India but I must admit that their customer care in India knows a thing or two about creating a great experience. I guess that's at the core of the Apple brand -- the experience.

Twice in the last year, my Macbook's battery went bust. Although I had purchased the AppleCare extended warranty program, it was very clear that battery was excluded from the warranty. However, I argued that the battery had gone wrong (black cross mark; no battery detected) without any reason and that lots of others have reported the same problem. They went through a set of questions to try and understand the problem, but by the end of the 10 minute call, I would have the solution: It's OK, even though it is not covered under your warranty, we will replace your battery because we want you to be able to use the laptop.

I have experienced customer service from various types of service providers in India, across sectors, Indian and multi-national corporations. But nobody can come close to the customer service experience of Apple. Not only are their representatives very polite and concerned about your issue, they obviously have a reasonably good knowledge of the product, and importantly for people like me, don't bull-shit. Not the, "Sir, do you know where the power button of the phone is; can you restart and check if it works, by chance..." bull-shit that you often get from an over-worked and under-trained agent. You could argue that Apple does not have too many customers in India, so they can have a small, trained team to address queries... but that really doesn't hold water. If you cannot scale your business operations to meet customer demand and issues, it is better not to grow than to grow and falter, like most mobile operators and credit companies in India have!

Even the service centres of Apple (franchisees) are staffed with helpful and knowledgeable people. I guess what differentiates Apple staff (and perhaps, therefore, their customers) is the passion for the product and its services. Those who do not understand it, wrongly term all these people as Fanboys, as if they belonged to a cult. What they fail to see is the shared identity and the pride in that identity. Kudos to the company and its leadership for having created this rare "business".

Wanted: iTunes Store for India

Another example of Apple's apathy for the Indian market is the lack of an Indian version of the iTunes store. Yes, you can register into the iTunes India store for iPhone apps download but we cannot buy music or videos or anything else from the India store, at India pricing. Most Indians who are desperate enough end up using the US store accounts of friends and relatives. Another way of accessing the store is to create your own account with a dummy US address (or that of your office or friends) and using pre-paid iTunes vouchers (if you are principled enough not to touch your friends for a few bucks every month!).

But what upsets me a lot is to pay nearly Rs 50 (99c) per every song that I download from the store. I still end up purchasing many songs at that price (though entire album CDs are usually available for the same price) because of the huge convenience of being able to download and immediately play the song that you felt like hearing. For instance, one evening I was remembering my college days and was humming Purani Jeans and I just had to hear the song immediately; all I had to do was to go to the iTunes Store on my iPhone and get the song -- took me all of 2 minutes!

Some might also argue that there are dozens of sites that offer Indian music downloads for free, so why bother about paid options. It's true, I have used these sites several times, but the quality of music is just not the same, and most often I don't get the songs' meta-data which makes it very painful to sort them on the iPod. And, somehow, it just doesn't feel right to be listening pirated music -- if only a decent, legal alternative was available.

What I wish for: an Indian iTunes Store that would sell music for about Rs 8 per song (just about works right from a PPP perspective too), TV episodes & videos for about Rs 15 each and movies for about Rs 30 each.

Film stars giving fundas about piracy is not going to convince anyone. Ok, thank you, can the movie start, please? What we need is a commercial digital solution that takes on piracy. iTunes shook up the US entertainment industry business model; can it have a similar impact on India?

Apple, Care?

Apple doesn't care about India; Vodafone can't help

I blogged earlier about how Vodafone had frittered away the iPhone opportunity in India; my latest experience has confirmed that hypothesis and also the fact that India doesn't really matter to Apple.

Unlike in most other markets, the iPhone is not subsidized in India. Customers have been paying upwards of Rs 30000 (almost $700 when it was launched last year) for the device. Yet, Apple takes no responsibility for the customers: it's popular AppleCare for iPhone extended warranty is not available here. In addition, it's service centers don't support iPhone problems, even when they are hardware or software (Apple related) issues.

What Apple does not realize is that Indian mobile operators have limited technical support capabilities because mobile phones are 99% bought directly from phone stores. Even where the carriers do provide handset-related support, it is usually low end / tier-1 (e.g. battery / accessory replacement); the handset manufacturers have their own service networks that cater to major technical issues.

This is bad news for iPhone users because most Vodafone Stores have no knowledge of the phone at all (the guy I spoke to this evening was wondering if he could replace the battery since it was not charging!). I was directed to their main Store some 10km away… It turned out eventually that there was nothing wrong with the handset -- both my USB connectors had stopped working on the same day! The first Vodafone Store, if only they had done a basic troubleshooting, could have solved my problem in 2 minutes; I ended up wasting an hour in peak-hour traffic.

I believe that the mobile operators and device makers are so busy chasing the 5mn new adds every month at the bottom of the pyramid that they have forgotten how to cater to other segments. While there is a lot to be proud about the success of the Indian low-cost business
model, I wish we would not end up gravitating to the lowest common denominator but actually move the users up the value chain of devices, applications and services. But today, I could not count on Apple or Vodafone in India.

iPhone versus Blackberry?

Recently, a friend posed the question, should I get myself a Blackberry or an iPhone... and I decided to share my views on the topic. I must admit that there are probably hundreds of online sites like this that have similar comparisons, however, most of them are either motivated or one-sided (driven by their respective audiences).

I have been using a Blackberry for a few years now, and the iPhone 3G for about a year. I use both of them simultaneously at this point in time, so I like both the devices and in fact use them for specific reasons. So here's my analysis:

(Note: some of the network related comments maybe specific to India / Indian operators. Also note: I have not yet tried the Blackberry Storm beyond a cursory look-over)

First the verdict: If you are looking for an all-round fun device, the iPhone is your best bet. However, if your smartphone is primarily for work and you actually have other specific "entertainment" devices (iPod/mp3 players, Kindle/ebook readers, etc.), then Blackberry scores over every other device.

Top 5 Reasons I still like my Blackberry:

1) Great push mail system, the best there is.

2) I can forward emails with large attachments in a second... on the iPhone (or in fact any other device), you have to download and upload... more on this later

3) Seamless integration with enterprise email, address book and calendar

4) Keyboard is easy to operate and supports typing long mails / texts

5) The red light indicator for new messages or missed calls... extremely useful when the phone is on silent

Top 5 Reasons I love my iPhone

1) The interface is amazingly attractive and intuitive... even my 18month old child can unlock the phone and play her favorite music... no kidding!

2) The App Store! (in fact this can take up all 5 spots on this list...)

3) iTunes integration for my music, videos, podcasts, movies... and the iTunes store

4) The visual effect... when watching images, powerpoint slideshows or movies, the screen resolution is unbeatable

5) The WOW factor... face it, we all love to show off what we have and iPhone enables that

What I still don't like about the iPhone

1) Limited "profiles" options... you just have Ring, Ring+Vibrate, Vibrate and Silent options... I like to be able to customize these settings (at an application level: SMS, Emails, Phone, etc.) for various situations. The BB allows you to add / edit these, but not the iPhone

2) The speakers are a let down... for an entertainment device like the iPhone (iPod), I would have expected much better volume levels and stereo capability... I can hardly put it on speakerphone when I am on a phone call

3) The iPhone is a not a great phone. It takes much longer to discover cellular networks and logon to them than any other smartphone. The voice quality is OK, but I feel that its signal reception is also weaker

4) The battery does not support the device capabilities; you can do so much but the battery drains when Push is enabled or GPS is used or any application is used for a while. Given that it does not have a replaceable batter, you need to have the charger handy

5) The battery issue is also responsible for the lack of parallel processing. It is a bit irritating to not be able to do the equivalent of an alt-tab or apple-tab to switch between apps. You have to go back to Home to switch apps, in most cases terminating the previous session (except Mail and Safari)

The Blackberry Killer App: E-Mail

The best thing about the BB is the integration with enterprise e-mail... of course, that comes at a cost (installing BB Servers) and is not meant for all. I get lots of mails with attachments, and in many cases, I just need to forward them to colleagues without necessarily opening the files. Because the BB mail actions happen off the BB Server, the forward can take place without having to download the entire mail onto your device and (worse still) having to upload it back! This is very useful when you are on the move...

(Most other smartphones, including the iPhone, have a mail client that works similar to your mail clients on the PC, either in IMAP or POP mode... even when Push / Exchange integration are enabled)

Combine this with the convenient keyboard that lets you type long mails / replies, the BB is unbeatable as a work email device.

The iPhone Killer App(s): The App Store

Others are trying to replicate the success of the iPhone app store, but Apple has a clear 12-18 month edge here. The App Store has made the iPhone into a powerful entertainment, networking, productivity, gaming and more device! With thousands of apps, many of them free, there is something for everyone: from time-pass, trivial stuff like Paper Toss to Bloomberg to Webex meetings to online Live Poker. By tapping into the amazing creativity of developers worldwide, Apple has offered iPhone users the ability to customize the device for stuff they are interested in. The "i" in the iPhone does stand for "I", the ability to make it personal!

(Actually, the iPod Touch provides pretty much most of the functionality of the iPhone for much less, it just doesn't have the cellular capability. While I don't miss the cellular voice on the iPod Touch, the always-on and ubiquitous cellular data capability is increasingly... you can remain connected to your mail or Facebook or Twitter or latest stock information on Bloomberg, whatever.)

So, the phone you choose really depends on what type of a person you are... and if you are someone confused like me :-) then you end up with more than one smartphone! Hope this helps, and do write in if you need any more detail or my views on any specific issues.

Update: Airport Extended Network issues

I haven't yet managed to figure out the settings for my extended network using AirportExpress. My MacBook Air is able to connect to the AX but not my iPhone nor my three year old MacBook.

It's obviously an issue with the Wireless settings becos both the iPhone and the MacBook are 802.11b/g whereas the MBA and the Airports are all 802.11n. I have chosen the b/g compatible option in the wireless settings of the TimeCapsule and indeed, the iPhone and MacBook are able to connect to the TC, but these settings are not getting translated to the AX when extending the network.

More R&D required…

Sent from my iPhone

UPDATE 1: Upgrading the Airport firmware to the latest 7.4.2 seems to have helped the situation. The two AX are now able to connect to each other, and the second AX has a wireless signal that can be detected by my iPhone, however, the signal is still a bit erratic and not as strong as I would have expected. Better than nothing, I guess.

More iPhone 3.0 Features

Here is a link that will provide many interesting features of using
the OS3.0 on your iPhone of iPod Touch

http://www.ismashphone.com/2009/06/22-more-iphone-30-features-you-may-not-know.html

If you find any more features, do share them.