Customer Service

In reading back over last nights blog entry, one may have gotten the impression that I let the power outage get my underwear in a wad.....actually, it did.
I was really frustrated. But here's the deal, it's not just Alabama Power. It seems to me that all big companies have abandoned the idea of customer service. Apparently it's too expensive.
You offshore the helpdesk to reduce costs. Costs are reduced because a lot of people hang up in frustration because either they don't understand the helpdesk person or the helpdesk person is obviously reading from a script and has not listened to one word of the description of your problem.
I think a company that understands this country's frustration with this issue could charge a premium for their products.
I would pay more for almost anything I buy if I knew I could get good service if the product ever had an issue.
One exception to this rule is Apple. I had a problem with my iPhone last week. For some reason the wireless feature stopped working. This meant that there were a lot of things I could not do with my phone when I was home.
I called in the Apple helpdesk and they had me try a few things. I had already tried them but it was obvious they weren't reading from a script.
They gave me a ticket and told me to set up an appointment a the local Apple store. I logged on to the Internet and set up an appointment for the next day.
I was somewhat leery because the appointment were 15 minutes a part. I thought to myself, how on earth can they diagnose my problem and fix it in 15 minutes. I had drawn a line in the sand and was going to demand a loaner phone if they had to send mine off.
My appointment was for 11 a.m. At three minutes till 11, they called my name. I walked to the counter and the young man asked for a description of the problem. I explained and he asked to see the phone. He did about 5 minutes of diags and said this is a defective unit. Let's get you a new one. He showed me how to delete all my private information and in less that 14 minutes I walked out of the store with a brand new phone.
I was blown away. They sent me a survey and asked if I was happy....if there was anything they could do differently to server me better.
As I read back over last night's post, I think all large corporations could learn something from Apple.