Thrilling Your Customers (Apple Does it Again)
September 5, 2008 · Print This Article
Posted by Mark Bennardo
The experience we create for our customers goes beyond the time they are at our events, on our sales floors or using our products.
To foster customer loyalty and even build a cult-like following, you have to thrill the customer—even after the sale, or your obligation, is done.
I’m a huge Apple fan. I’ve been using Macs for over 20 years. I’m already in the fold—it’s a done deal—but yesterday I got another HUGE reminder of why I love Apple. They extended my customer experience by thrilling me. Here’s what happened:
On Tuesday of this week, I sent my almost three-year-old PowerBook G4 in to Apple to get some repairs done. Being an Apple Care member (their extended warranty program), I had about 2 more months left before the warranty expired. I decided to send the laptop in to get some final repairs while I still could. Among the things I needed fixed was a flaky monitor.
Yesterday afternoon, I got a call from Frank, at Apple Care.
He said, “Well, we have a little problem with your computer. The screen is so bad, it can’t be repaired. It needs to be replaced”.
“Yeah…” I said, a little hesitantly.
“Well, this might sound weird, but we currently don’t have any monitors…and it will take a month for us to get any”, he said.
“You’re kidding. I can’t wait that long.” I replied.
“No. But I think I have another solution for you.” He said.
“Okay…” I said, and braced myself for some pain. Frank then made a statement that shocked me.
“We’d like to send you a brand new MacBook Pro to replace this one”. He said.
“…Uh…What?” I replied, quite eloquently.
“We’d like to send you a brand new 2.4 GHz MacBook Pro with 2 gigs of RAM and a 200 gig hard drive. As far as your current machine goes, we’ll either fix & try to resell it, or use it for parts”, He told me. “The new MacBook Pro is yours to keep.”
“Am I on Candid Camera?” I asked.
“No”, he laughed. “You’ve had some trouble with this machine and it’s still under its Apple Care warranty, so we’d like to give you a new one”.
I explained to him that my machine was almost 3 years old and was even an older generation (PowerBook) than the computer they wanted to send to me. He said they realized that, then asked if it was okay for them to send me a new machine.
Once I finished picking myself up off the floor, I thanked Frank and then asked how often he gets to make these kinds of phone calls.
He said, “It’s my job to call people up and tell them they’re getting a new computer. They call me Santa Claus around here” (now that’s what I call a great job).
I told him he was my new best friend.
Apple gets it. They didn’t have to do anything more than replace my monitor. They didn’t even have to give me a refurbished version of the computer I already had. But they went above and beyond (way beyond) and offered me a better solution than I ever would have dreamed of.
In short, they thrilled me…to say the least.
3 Responses to “Thrilling Your Customers (Apple Does it Again)”
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September 6th, 2008 at 11:12 pm
Hey Mark. Didn’t know you were blogging. Way to go! Looking forward to working with you again in a couple of weeks. Let’s try and get together first part of the week.
September 10th, 2008 at 9:35 am
I’m jealous.
September 23rd, 2008 at 9:13 pm
I think I’ll break my ibook and send it in to see if I can get a new computer!!!