hi guys,

i had a very arrogant and rude encounter over the phone with a customer relations staff over my wife's macbook. my wife bought a macbook mid july and it worked fine for a few days but with funny clunking and cuberling sounds coming out of the super drive. we thought maybe the sound's normal though it was fishy. on the fourth day a music cd jammed in the drive and refused to come out. i took it back to service and haven't gotten it ever since. service center changed the drive 'twice' and they still can't get it to work. i told the service center that i think the problem is not with the spare parts but with the machine itself and i requested a new machine. service center told me that they will raise the issue with apple and get back to me. today the service center called me and told me that apple insists that the customer call them direct which i did.

that's when i got the very arrogant and rude encounter with the customer relations staff. he insisted that i wait a couple more days to try yet another batch of spare parts and he confidently tried to convince me that he believes the problem is with all 2 spare parts and the original drive and not the machine - which is just as bad as the machine being faulty. why would apple import spare parts that don't work. and 3 is more than a mere coincidence i believe. he told me that if it doesn't work this time then he will issue me a new machine. i told him that we haven't used the machine ever since we bought it and it's too long already and i insisted on a new machine. he told me that it doesn't work like that and then something that sounded more like he won't entertain my request and i have to do it their way and not my way.

i have 6 dell machines in my office and dell's service is something to envy. i don't have to move from my seat. i don't have to haggle with customer support over the phone. they come to pick up and they deliver, and they even upgrade spare parts if the parts are no longer available at no extra charge.

i still feel very insulted and was looking for a link to complain to apple but to no avail. i found this page that has links for feedbacks in the bottom-right corner of the page. the 'Apple Support Feedback' takes you to a 'AppleCare website Suggestions' form and not a feedback about support. i feel that i need to complain so that apple knows about their 'customer relations' staff that think their arrogance is justified and customers need to take their sh*t. does anyone have an email link or phone number i can contact apple and complain about this incident?

thanks,

mirage3d

thanks xaw for your input, but i feel i have the right to ask for a new machine since the unit i received made all those sounds since day 1. if they allowed a faulty unit that can't be fixed to sold, it can only mean that they didn't any quality assurance. they at least should replace it with no questions asked. it's a mistake on their part and not me. why have a warrantee then? how would you feel if you bought a machine to discover that 3 drives don't work on it and they still insist on testing one more time? now how would you feel if it were a car? the macbook for my wife is a business tool and not something nice to look at.

and regarding the 'my way' i don't believe a company that has something called 'customer support' should look at things that way, nor should they employ people who suggest anything similar to be in a position to offer support. end of the day, the guy was arrogant and rude. he shouldn't be in a customer 'relations' department. he should even pick up any business call if apple knows any better. when i asked him who decides whether i get a new machine or not, he answered 'that would be me'. honestly, with his attitude i'm not so sure he would decide in my favor if the parts don't arrive or they don't work again. he didn't even try to understand that it's been more than 5 weeks and still no result.

mirage3d

actually civic, the shop was very helpful. after they couldnt' get the original drive to work they tried one spare part and it failed. they then tried another generic drive since apple has no more spare parts. they said apple told them there's a shortage in spare parts in malaysia and singapore. they called me and told me that the second drive works but not as fast and suggested that i use it temporarily until the spare parts arrive. this was two weeks ago. when i went to the shop and asked the technician to try it out, it jammed. that's when i felt like this is not gonna work. i asked for a new unit and the technician told me to leave it behind then to test the mb and ask apple or a replacement unit. all this while the shop has been calling me and updating me on the status of the machine and spare parts.

a shortage of spare parts in malaysia and singapore? i mean what kind of and answer is this ? how do you expect to support customers like this? and shortage in parts doesn't sound good at all to begin with.

i still bit the bullet and believed that this is momentarily and apple is known for good support; until my phone conversation this afternoon.

mirage3d

dear xaw,

i respect your posts and your position as a senior. i wish this guy did what you did and tried to understand my situation and absorbed my frustration instead of what he did. thank you for being a gentleman.


the customer relations guy was not malaysian. and the number i dialed was apple's toll free number that xaw posted above.


mirage3d

the macbook is still in service waiting for the parts to arrive. it's not the shop's fault that the parts are not available. this shop told me that apple malaysia insisted no me calling them direct on the 1800 number, which i did and got the said response from them.
this morning i got a call from the shop telling me that they followed up on the case and apple malaysia told them that the parts have arrived but still in transit ?? so technically they're here but because tomorrow's a holiday i can only expect the mb to be delivered to us on monday, which i doubt knowing how things have been so far. i searched the apple sites for a link for contact but couldn't find any, so i asked for an email to write to and i was given one.

honestly begred, i wouldn't be so fussy about the whole issue if it were a home machine. this is a business machine. my wife uses an hp and she's complaining about windows and outlook and all. so i convinced her to convert to the mac. i even asked her to migrate all data to the mac, which luckily she hasn't yet. now the macbook is still in service for around 5 weeks and even if we had it it would be useless since we can't use the drive to install stuff or use it for playback - we do events. in the meantime, my wife still suffers from outlook not working properly - the only solution is to reinstall windows and office and everything else and then wait for another 6 months for everything to stop working again.

i'm a consumer that builds his own machines for home and games. i was hooked onto the mac and would like to convert my whole office to macs. for home i'm adventurous and i buy dells or clones and i upgrade them myself. for business i don't do that and only buy brands that i trust and expect good support because sometimes our work is very crucial and requires fast support and fix. the technical 'relations' personnel from apple malaysia sounded so oblivious to my situation. 6 weeks of waiting for a machine to be fixed IS long. no matter how you look at it and from whichever angle, it is long! what kind of relations is he building with his clients if he can't understand a simple fact like this? compare my case to this one...

http://cultofmac.com/?p=947

now that is service. the guy broke it himself. he admitted it, and they still gave him a new unit, despite how hot and unavailable it is. i'm in the service industry myself. and if i get a complaint from one of my client i try my best to solve his issue and try to be as polite as possible. i wouldn't put up an arrogant face and ask the client to wait till i'm ready and expect only what i decide. we emphasize on our staff to be as accommodating as possibly can without losing face. i must say that for a first call i was handled in a bad way.

i didn't even get a call from them even though when i called them the support guy asked me if the contact they have in my file is correct. why bother having a phone number if you're not gonna bother calling the customer for updates. that's a waste database space in my opinion. i think dell should buy over apple customer support center and run the whole show. these dudes know how to do it right. now if only dell can run os x legally.
i wrote an email this afternoon detailing my case to the email i got earlier and i'm waiting for their response. not that it would do me much good since i'd be away for a week from sunday for holiday.

i love mac and i won't let a freak incident like this to turn me away from the machine. i even have an order for 3 more machines. but i won't let them bully customers like this. the feeling i get from this board is that what happened to me is not a big deal. i hardly got a hint that a customer relations guy being arrogant and rude is 'wrong'. this is something i notice quite a bit in malaysia. seems like nobody heard of consumer rights. from the accent i'd say the guy's australian. i wonder if he could do the same if he were in australia ?

peace and out.

mirage3d

oh dear! oh my!

i hope we won't end up like this girl...

http://girlsgonechild.blogspot.com/2006/09...t-more-bad.html

my wife's case is almost 70% as this girl's case. the drive made noises since the day we got it. it kicked the bucket 4 or 5 days later. they keep fixing it but it's never really fixed. the shop told us that apple said there are problems with macbook super drives and they also said there's a shortage of spare parts in malaysia and singapore, and they keep stalling and not wanting to issue a new machine when they sold a bad unit to begin with, and our complaint email is not answered - yet. hmmmm. why, oh why apple ?

and here's a forum about the woes of apple. i guess it's not just in malaysia, but malaysia has no such forum yet. so people don't know about bad experiences because people just don't talk about them.

http://www.appledefects.com/

and here's a very very very interesting post. looks like apple should do Exactly what dell is doing to its customers, except that you have to do some work and they wanna keep it hush hush!!!

http://www.appledefects.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=400

i think we should setup a similar forum or site in malaysia - if none has been setup already - to get apple malaysia's attention. maybe even add a sub-forum to apple byte's here on lowyat.net ?

what say you guys? some discussion about apple care experiences would only help improve things for the rest of us mac'ers ?

cheers,

mirage3d