A Tale of Two Companies

As my regular blog readers know, over the past several months I've had major problems with two essential pieces of equipment: my laptop and my dishwasher. Both are around the same age. On both, I'd paid extra for extended warranties. But the treatment I received at the hands of the companies couldn't be more different.

First up: Sears. When the dishwasher failed to work, I called their customer service. And discovered it would be two weeks before anyone could come to look at the darned thing. I asked if I could be filled in at any point if there was a cancellation. I called every day to see if someone could come out and help. The customer service people were by turns indifferent and rude. The guys at the store suggested I buy a new dishwasher (to replace one that was less than two years old). I found the e-mail addresses and mailing addresses for Sears executives, and sent out letters expressing my concerns about their lack of service. I never heard back. When the repairman finally came on the appointed day, he didn't even have any parts for the dishwasher (because he was a washing machine guy who'd been filling in for the dishwasher people for the past few weeks, and despite his requests, his bosses hadn't given him parts). Because the appointment wasn't put in with our warranty, he nearly walked out without looking at it, because I refused to pay for the service. Total grade: F.

Next up: Apple. I've been having problems with my laptop, nearly from the get-go. So far, the battery has been replaced twice, and the hard drive crashed a month back. The customer service people were all super nice, walked me through a few attempts to set things right, then set up appointments, always for the next day. At the store's Genius bar, the people took me seriously. Repairs were made within a few days. And this week, I escalated it to the executive level, because I was so frustrated with my computer: The fan was going on a lot, and I was having some real issues with slowness again. A few hours after sending an e-mail to Steve Jobs' address, I received a call from Mark in executive customer service. After a little phone tag, he called back after hours, and spent a half hour talking to me about my computer and what I needed to do to get it working right. (Turns out, I didn't have enough RAM to support the Leopard operating system.) Mark even suggested going to a cheaper place to buy the RAM and installing it myself, but since I wasn't too keen to take a look at my computer's innards, he arranged that I'd have the Genius bar install my RAM and waived the service fee. It was taken care of in less than an hour. While I wish the Geniuses had suggested the upgrade earlier, all in all, a fine example of their customer service. Total grade: A-