This comes a little late in the day, but I would like to share my experience with the new iPhone 5, less about the phone and more about the experience of being a customer.
Let me share a little about my fascination with the iPhone first. I purchased a iPhone 3GS about 20 months ago and it worked like a charm. A freak accident and the phone was reduced to pieces.
I promised myself to wait it out till the iPhone 5 comes out since it made little sense to invest over the iPhone 4S, given that the iPhone 5 was around the corner.
The iPhone 5 I had purchased is partnered with a new entrant in the CDMA network for Apple, United States. I had a colleague who was travelling to the U.S buy it for me. As expected, I was ecstatic to hold it when he got back with the phone.
On first look, I was impressed by the beautiful design that runs through the iPhone and the weight that makes you take a second look to realize that you are indeed holding a phone! Took me a while to identify that a few trademark features such as the Messages, iMessages or FaceTime over cellular were failing to activate.
The Issue…
Turns out there was an issue with the way the phone was unlocked by the carrier it was purchased from, given that it is relatively new in partnering with Apple. It’s something for a phone to not impress you, but to impress you and fail at doing the simpler things is a little confusing.
I scourged through Apple forums to find that this issue was being faced by a few other users who had purchased it from the same provider.
I have always believed Apple to be a company that didn’t care much about market sentiments or the competition it faces from other firms. Here I was having a beast of phone that was failing to send SMSes.
I cut through the hierarchy of contacting Apple support in the United States first and then taking the escalation process. I wrote an email to Tim Cook, CEO, Apple Inc (which I found out with a Google search) and Phil Schiller. I even followed it through with a reminder stating my plight with the phone.
The Response from Apple
Out of the blue, I get a call from their customer care in Ireland stating that their call is over my emails to Tim Cook and that they were here to help.
It took Apple less than a days work to fix my problem and then follow up to ensure I was happy and that their direct lines were available in future for any other issues i may face.
Being a Indian consumer, my expectations from public & private companies are near zero. I have always been a Apple enthusiast given that we choose our favorite products by individual tastes, but to find that the company you are so passionate about is as passionate about you is simply marvelous! My romance with Apple products has just got better.
Editor’s Note: This post is part of our TDIS ( Thank Devil It’s Sunday) feature, where we publish casual and personal posts. You can read other TDIS posts here.
8 Comments
Your iphone was not working and you sent email to Tim Cook… Lol … Tomorrow if you get a spam email from someone, so you will send email to Larry page? … I thought this blog had authors who were mature… Looks like i was so wrong.
@Vinayendra: The point of the post was he got a response after sending an email with his issues, which is an incredible thing. It would be nice to be not judgmental of authors who share their personal experiences online on a popular blog.
BTW –
iPhone not working and Spam is very different. Spam is not created by Google but iPhone is created by Apple.
@Vinayendra
I think you don’t use Google as much as you talk about it. A simple Google Search landed me here
Had Prasad, the post author said that Tim Cook called him back personally then it would been a thing to suspect.
You can send emails to anyone including Larry Page. Only thing you may not get a reply from those big people directly for obvious reasons.
@vinayendra, Your comment on thie experience of @prasadris not helpful at all.
If a comments are not matur, it is yours.
I had an issue with my MacBook and I had contacted the support team as a first step. They didn’t reply. Who knows if support ticket may not have got created and packets may have lotst in transit. (?) Or if support team is using mail account to address each support request in that case also one can not be sure if the reuest landed in SPAM box (??) Then I also mailed Mr. Cook and I received due support call from the support team. The issue was related with Physical damage and hence they didn’t do anything. I was fine with that since its a policy after-all. I dont care the blunt statements from other’s like Vinayendra. What matters for me the most is that the CEO cared for his companies product and my request was taken care of at the end. I am HaPpY 🙂
Ok guys it your blog. This is just my thought. I feel its childish to send an email personally to the CEO of the company for such silly reasons. You might have sent it and got away with it but there are 10000+ readers of your blog. What if everyone starts escalating the case to CEO of company when they have a problem if one of their product. Ethically this is wrong. Ideally you should have escalate it step by step, It might have taken more time but thats the right thing to do.
By the way hats off to Apple team and their customer care service.
Hi Vinayendra
When you purchase a premium product, you expect premium support, it is as simple as that. Thankfully the guys at Apple & other product companies dont agree to your mature comments 🙂
You may consider this to be childish, but that is because you deem a CEO to be be out of reach, however they are all accountable for their work. What Apple did to revert to my questions or Andres only confirms this.
As Aditya mentions, this was a TDIS post and not a view necessarily endorsed by the blog.
Peace.
Regards
Prasad Rao
I think it’s really good phone and I want to buy it… but one problem
I need factory unlocked and it costs more expensive