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".