Apple’s Amazing Customer Service Blows Me Away
I've been cleaning up my office - OK, more than 'cleaning', I've been gutting it and dropping about five computers (Sun, SGI, NeXT, HP, and Canon) and reorganizing the entire office to simplify the office and clean all the wiring and power distribution I have. It's taken me several weekends, and it's required me to throw away computers that I've had longer than I've had kids. It's been an emotional journey.
Several months ago, my iMac G5 died and the cats at the Genius Bar in OakBrook said that it would be $900 to replace the mainboard. Yikes! That's nearly the cost of a new Intel iMac. So I got the Intel iMac and put it into service. I didn't get rid of the iMac G5 because I really wanted to get it working, I just didn't know what it'd take to get it going.
Well, in the cleanup, it was one machine that I just could not part with. I think it's the emotional attachment to the first iMac I bought myself. It was a G5, after all! That was a smoking processor! So I kept it. Well... this weekend, I decided to try and see if I could get to the bottom of the problem. All my Google searches said "Mainboard replacement", and my tests showed that I had to do the same. No way around it.
So I realized that it was worth $900 to me, and I went back to the OakBrook Genius Bar and said the story of my iMac. It boots, but then locks up. The gal took it and looked at it behind the bar (it was very crowded) and after a little bit came back to me and said "Yeah, it looks like the mainboard, and it's out of warranty." This, I knew. But I was ready. "But we're going to fix it for you for free."
What!?
Free?!
Yes, free. She took down a little more information from me and went to write up the ticket. It was going to take about 5 days to get the board and replace it. I told Liza about the news and she was blown away for about half a second. "Bob", she said, "You bought a MacBook Pro for your Mom here, my MacBook Air, the three Kids' MacBooks, your iMac... they're going to throw you a bone because it's good advertising."
OK, I had to agree, she's right. After all I've spent in that store, the cost of the mainboard is really nothing to them, but to me, it's incredible customer service. I'll be telling this story for a long time to come - and buying Apple computers for even longer.
So in about a week I'll be able to go back and get my new iMac G5 and put it in my new office and have it back up and running. That's just the most incredible news I've had in weeks. I'm so very glad I didn't ditch it in the clean-up. This is going to be great.