Sigh. As much as I hate the direction that Apple is going with their hardware and software, they still have the best customer service around. 

"Honeybunchesofgoats" (honeybunche0fgoats) 10/30/2016 at 14:50 • Filed to: None

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My iPhone has had really crappy battery life for a few months now. I took it to the Apple Store twice under warranty, but there wasn’t anything they could do to fix it, since the diagnostic was showing that it was holding 85% of its original charge (warranty replacements happen at 80%). Both times, the techs were really apologetic and gave me “you didn’t hear it from me” advice on how to destroy the battery while it was still under warranty (“I would go home and put the phone in your freezer, but I didn’t tell you that.”).

My warranty expired two weeks ago, and since I’m going to be on vacation in December, I decided to just bite the bullet and pay $79 to have the battery replaced, since I wouldn’t be buying a phone without a headphone jack any time soon.

I went to the store, explained that it was out of warranty and that I wanted to get the battery replaced.

Against my light protest, the tech ran a battery diagnostic. 83%.

I said again that I’ll just pay to have it replaced.

“Well, you’ve documented having this problem while it was under warranty, so I don’t think you should have to pay anything.”

“No. Really. It’s cool.”

“No, try restoring the phone from backup and if it doesn’t fix anything in a week, we’ll just do it for free.”

After a bit more back and forth, he went to run a detailed diagnostic of battery usage, but it returned saying there was an error.

Then he went through the history of my visits and saw it noted that I would do a restore.

He went away to speak to a manager, came back and said “I have good news and bad news. The good news is that it’s not clear if it’s hardware or software problem causing this problem, so we’re just going to give you a new phone, because you really shouldn’t have to pay to fix this when you came in about it while it was in warranty. The bad news is that we don’t have this phone in stock, so we’ll call you in 3-5 days and you can pick up a new one for free.”

So, in the end, rather than pay $79 for a battery replacement, I’m getting a brand new replacement phone for free, which usually costs $300 (I had to sign the service order, which said the cost of a full replacement was $300, but it was amended to say that I wouldn’t have to pay anything).

I can now add my iPhone 6s to the very long list of Apple products that have been replaced for free out of warranty. As much as the new MacBooks anger me, I’m probably stuck with Apple as long as their costumer service is still this great.

Nibby > Honeybunchesofgoats 10/30/2016 at 14:53

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Apple 2016

Honeybunchesofgoats > Nibby 10/30/2016 at 14:58

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:( just like how I have to plug in a cassette converter to use Spotify in my Jag. But at least I can do that and charge my 6s at the same time.

E90M3 > Honeybunchesofgoats 10/30/2016 at 15:03

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I got really drunk two days before I left Russia. When I woke up, my phone was soaked, completely dead. Plugged it in, and it did work, however, it would only show 67% battery no matter what. Great, guess I’ll be buying a new phone once I get back to the states. I wake up at 4 AM for my 6 AM flight out of Tyumen and on the way to the airport my phone dies. That was unfortunate as the taxi we had was a JDM corolla; I rode in the front, being on the left was certainly an unusual experience. When I landed in Moscow, I found an outlet and plugged my phone in, thankfully it charges. When I get back to ATL, I make an appointment at the apple store, fulling expecting them to be like it’s water damage, nothing we can do. Well I go to the store and when the guy looks at my phone I play dumb. My phone decided to cooperate, when you went to the battery status screen, it would just turn off. The guy was like this is really weird, something is really wrong, is your phone backed up? I was like yeah, well it’s probably a software problem so we’re gonna give you a new phone, just don’t restore it from the back up. Perfect, my dumb ass got a new free phone. I went and got a lifeproof case after that.

AMGtech - now with more recalls! > Honeybunchesofgoats 10/30/2016 at 15:04

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IMO customer service and aesthetic design have been all Apple had going for them for a long time. But those two things are way ahead of everyone else.

Blunion05 drives a pink S2000 (USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST) > Honeybunchesofgoats 10/30/2016 at 15:08

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I’ve noticed that Apple and Amazon have the best customer service I’ve seen.

I spoke to somebody who formerly worked for Amazon who explained the inner workings of how important customer service was at Amazon and I was blown away.

Corporations who aren’t prioritizing customer service aren’t going to be able to keep up.

Honeybunchesofgoats > E90M3 10/30/2016 at 15:09

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1) I’m going to be in Scotland, Spain, and Ireland, and I intend to spend none of it sober, which is why I want my phone fixed before I leave.

2) I had a very similar experience with my first iPad. I knocked it off of the nightstand and cracked the screen about a month after buying it. I was completely honest and said “I knocked it off of the nightstand and cracked the screen.”

The guy at the Genius Bar went “oh. Well, see how it has one big crack down the center? That’s a hardware defect and covered under warranty, so we’ll give you a new one.”

I fear the day that Apple instructs its employees that it isn’t acceptable to DGAF about warranties.

Honeybunchesofgoats > AMGtech - now with more recalls! 10/30/2016 at 15:10

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I originally switched to Macs exclusively after Lenovo did a shoddy repair on my ThinkPad’s screen and informed me that fixing it would cost me money.

PS9 > Nibby 10/30/2016 at 15:12

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The best part about all this is when those $20 dongles become obsolete once apple goes all wireless with the next iPhone. LOLOLOLOLOLOLO

PS9 > E90M3 10/30/2016 at 15:13

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That’s what you get for taking the iPhone vodka challenge.

Honeybunchesofgoats > Blunion05 drives a pink S2000 (USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST) 10/30/2016 at 15:14

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I totally agree. I made a post about that on Oppo a while back. Basically, I contacted Amazon to complain about how the USPS missed a Sunday delivery date, and they responded by forwarding my concerns to their shipping department, giving me a free month of Prime, and updating my account so that in the future, their system would prioritize UPS and FedEx for my packages, and that the postal service would only be used to deliver as a last resort.

That’s on top of all of my other experiences I’ve had with them. Amazon is ridiculously on top of the customer service game.

LongbowMkII > Honeybunchesofgoats 10/30/2016 at 15:22

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Yeah it’s pretty great. Samsung’s was awful after I dropped my S4 and the battery expanded breaking the screen. Needless to say I wasn’t surprised with their recall.

Posted from my iPhone.

Honeybunchesofgoats > LongbowMkII 10/30/2016 at 15:23

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Coincidentally, he spent an awful lot of time feeling my iPhone for a bulging battery. More than once. I get the feeling that Samsung has every manufacturer freaked out.

wiffleballtony > Honeybunchesofgoats 10/30/2016 at 15:28

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As far as I’m concerned Apple is a lifestyle accessory company that sells hideously overpriced gadgets. As such they better have great customer service. /end rant

Honeybunchesofgoats > wiffleballtony 10/30/2016 at 15:35

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I would have argued against that before Apple released a $1500 laptop with one usable port while charging, but now you get a star instead.

gmctavish needs more space > Honeybunchesofgoats 10/30/2016 at 15:35

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When I got my first iPhone, a 4, I was walking to the mall to buy an OtterBox for it. Of course, I tripped, dropped the phone, and the back glass shattered. I held it together with packing tape, and got the case. I used it like that for a few weeks until I decided to go to the Apple Store to see how much it would cost to replace the glass. I told the guy what happened, he asked if I had AppleCare. I said no, didn’t even know what it was. He told me I was lucky it wasn’t the front glass, and he’d replace the glass for free, and encouraged me to get AppleCare in case something happened again. I did, but nothing happened again. But getting that glass replaced for free, and the customer service in general is a big part of why I’ve stuck with Apple so far

AMGtech - now with more recalls! > Honeybunchesofgoats 10/30/2016 at 15:38

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That’s fair. I’m not really a tech type of person (outside of car related work things), more like the person who bought a corolla just to get from a to b reliably but with phones. Seeing as 25% of the telematics problems I deal with are caused by apple products, and none by android, I just can’t bring myself to like Apple or make the switch. Had a lightning cable, not even plugged into a phone, cause voice control to not work just the other day. Long story short, disconnect cable, everything works. Sorry customer, that’s not warranty, gib me moneys.

Honeybunchesofgoats > AMGtech - now with more recalls! 10/30/2016 at 15:41

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That’s completely understandable. I actually have a deep love for Alpine because they released a firmware update for their legacy head units after an Apple update broke bluetooth on a lot of stereos.

Mercedes Streeter > Honeybunchesofgoats 10/30/2016 at 15:44

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Apple customer service is top notch. At the same time, repairing an iPhone yourself is remarkably easy if you’re willing to take a stab at it. Seriously, while Androids are held together with glue, witchcraft, and soldering, iPhones (save for the 7) are just held together with 100 micro-screws and everything uses a connector instead of soldering.

Honeybunchesofgoats > Mercedes Streeter 10/30/2016 at 15:46

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Which is ironic, considering that the computers are impossible to upgrade (I say as I type this on an old Macbook Air that’s in desperate need of more storage).

E90M3 > Honeybunchesofgoats 10/30/2016 at 15:50

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I was in Russia for work, so had to be sober sometimes. Well they did have a bar on the campus, so naturally I took advantage.

Also, traveling internationally with a broken phone is no fun.

Mercedes Streeter > Honeybunchesofgoats 10/30/2016 at 15:50

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Ha!!! I’m typing this on a 2008 polycarbonate MacBook that’s been converted to only run Windows 10 and Windows 7.

Apple makes their phones like that so they can be professionally repaired by their own people. Makes it easier to have that stellar customer service. That said, the unintended consequence being anyone can repair them as well.

Honeybunchesofgoats > Mercedes Streeter 10/30/2016 at 15:52

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It was so hard for me to understand why they had to send my MBA out to be repaired when the battery failed. “But... can’t you do an iPhone in fifteen minutes?”

On the plus side, one time I took an iPhone in to have the battery replaced, but they accidentally broke a connector in the process and had to give me a new one. Score.

Honeybunchesofgoats > E90M3 10/30/2016 at 15:55

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That’s true. I used to work in New York. Anytime I had to go out to get food for an office party, I would go out over my lunch hour and stop at a bar. I rationalized it, because if anyone questioned why I had been drinking during office hours, I could claim that it was their fault for making me leave the building.

E90M3 > Honeybunchesofgoats 10/30/2016 at 16:01

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We weren’t allowed to be drink in the oil field, naturally; however, at the man camp/hotel we were. The shower beer at 0700 after working night shift is great.

Honeybunchesofgoats > E90M3 10/30/2016 at 16:05

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I never really understood beer in a personal way until the first time I did field work and each day ended with everyone sitting around a table and chain smoking and getting plastered.

E90M3 > Honeybunchesofgoats 10/30/2016 at 16:10

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Yeah, field works makes people want to drink. Since we had a reprieve from the field, we did a lot of drinking. That was cheap Russian beer, it gave me a horrible hangover.

Honeybunchesofgoats > E90M3 10/30/2016 at 16:14

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I was in Uzbekistan, so I developed a weird love for cheap Russian beer. You could fill up empty 1l water bottles for about $1 (unsurprisingly, alcoholism is a big problem in Uzbekistan). Next time, trade off with Kvass, which is a weird fermented rye soda with a low alcohol content.

E90M3 > Honeybunchesofgoats 10/30/2016 at 16:17

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We weren’t allowed to bring alcohol back to the training center, normally I’d be like yeah ok, but since that might have cost me my job, I obeyed the rules. So we had to go out to the city to drink, liquor was cheaper than beer. Drank a lot of red bull vodkas, oh and B52s. For whatever reason my group loved to get those.

Blunion05 drives a pink S2000 (USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST) > Honeybunchesofgoats 10/30/2016 at 16:37

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Amazon is a strong #1 contender for their customer service in general.

As best I can recall, the guy I spoke with used to be a senior? manager for one of their major warehouses somewhere in NorCal or the Northwest. A truck ready to move customer orders to another warehouse had to leave at precisely the right time.

One last item in the warehouse needed to be on that truck before it left. Looking at his tablet (or whatever portable device it may have been), it displayed the item would arrive for loading seconds before the truck was required to leave. He didn’t let the gate close as it was essential that item made it to whoever ordered it on time (customer service is priority). The item made it to the gate. By the time it was loaded onto the truck and the truck left, despite being a few seconds past the departure time, his supervisor approached him that he just made a million dollar mistake, literally. Because the truck left a few seconds later than required, everything on it had to be upgraded to 2-day shipping so all the orders could arrive on time.

He explained one way Amazon improves their efficiency is to constantly look at why certain items didn’t make it to the gate on time, like in this instance.

wiffleballtony > Honeybunchesofgoats 10/30/2016 at 16:38

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As a person who grew up in the shadow of Infinite Loop, and was fed a steady stream of Macs, there was a time that I liked Apple, but that was back in the 90s. Back when they made their own hardware and operating systems.

Honeybunchesofgoats > Blunion05 drives a pink S2000 (USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST) 10/30/2016 at 16:40

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That’s the sort of insane efficiency that’s so awesome it gives me chills.

Blunion05 drives a pink S2000 (USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST) > Honeybunchesofgoats 10/30/2016 at 16:45

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I was mentally shitting my pants. Jeff Bezos is crazy, but good. Customer service isn’t easy so props to people who work for this crazy ass company.

Honeybunchesofgoats > Blunion05 drives a pink S2000 (USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST) 10/30/2016 at 16:47

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I always feel so conflicted. There are all those stories about how Amazon is literally the worst place you could possibly work for, but damn, they certainly get that you have to offer something special if you want to destroy brick and mortar stores.

AMGtech - now with more recalls! > Honeybunchesofgoats 10/30/2016 at 17:25

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Mercedes does the same thing. Seems like I do updates a few times a week, not as many Apple related these days as a year or two ago, but they’re still there. Used to ask customers all the time, “when did this start happening? When did your phone last have an update?” There was often a connection between the two.

gogmorgo - rowing gears in a Grand Cherokee > Blunion05 drives a pink S2000 (USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST) 10/30/2016 at 17:45

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They need to send some good advice up to their Canadian team then.

I actually cancelled my prime and stopped buying things from them due to a customer service problem.

Back story: I ordered a couple extra batteries and a charger for my gopro. For some unexplained reason they couldn’t ship to my address, despite me having had many things sent to my address. They couldn’t ship to any of the other addresses I’d had things shipped to, so I sent it to my sister’s place, which is 200 miles from where I live. But we’d be seeing each other and it wasn’t super urgent, so I figured what the hey. My sister’s apartment building has a security door, and no buzzer, so of course UPS can’t deliver it, and it gets market as undeliverable. Amazon’s tracking tells me to contact them to proceed to the next step. So I shoot them an email, asking them how to put my sister in touch with UPS to pick it up, or schedule a delivery time when she’s home, or get it sent to another address, or something. I expect a response telling me to talk to UPS, or else something else that will fix the problem. Instead what I get is “We’re sorry it was undeliverable. Here’s a refund.” and that’s it. So obviously I respond saying “umm... sure, but I didn’t ask for a refund, I just was asking how to get the package delivered. I kinda want to have my package delivered, and your eagerness at issuing a refund instead of dealing with the problem, even telling me it’s my problem and what steps I should take to fix it would be dealing with the problem, kinda pisses me off” (I’m paraphrasing) and I get an answer apologizing for their poor service and telling me that I need to order it again and they’ll send another. That one really pissed me off, because it means that this guy just hopped in there and didn’t even look at the conversation history to find out what the problem was, and that sending it again would simply result in the same thing happening. So in my answer, I said as much, and that I wouldn’t order another because it was a waste of everyone’s resources to send another one from across the country just to have the same thing happen when there was one sitting in the town it was supposed to be in already, and if I didn’t get that one it would be a long time before I ordered anything else from them because that whole exchange was completely ridiculous. They responded by saying they were escalating with shipping. A week later it got “delivered” to someone where the package started out, back across the country. That’s when I cancelled my prime, and was going to write them back to explain why except I knew I was too pissed off about it to write a courteous email (all my others to this point had been) telling them I was severing ties because of their horrible customer service, so I didn’t do it right away, and I haven’t quite got around to it yet.

Blunion05 drives a pink S2000 (USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST) > gogmorgo - rowing gears in a Grand Cherokee 10/30/2016 at 19:43

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That’s unfortunate. Is there a UPS or FedEx center by you?

I’d try to tweet at Bezos (or some other high Amazon execs), you never know, if you can incur his wrath...ooo boi.

gogmorgo - rowing gears in a Grand Cherokee > Blunion05 drives a pink S2000 (USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST) 10/30/2016 at 20:00

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Like, 60 miles away, but it would be a hell of a canonball to get down there while they’re open around my work schedule at the time. That’s why amazon (and other online retailers) are so convenient for me. Because nothing else is. There are definite compromises to living in the middle of nowhere.

Blunion05 drives a pink S2000 (USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST) > gogmorgo - rowing gears in a Grand Cherokee 10/30/2016 at 20:11

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Ah, I figured the middle of nowhere is where you might be. I’ll be honest, I don’t see living in the middle of nowhere in the USA as a problem for Amazon, but I think I can see why it might be for the Canadian counterpart.

gogmorgo - rowing gears in a Grand Cherokee > Blunion05 drives a pink S2000 (USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST) 10/30/2016 at 21:59

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Frankly there’s no reason it should be here either. There’s a post office two miles away, and half the stuff Amazon couriers out here anyway makes it out just fine. They’ll even get things here in two days, which is impressive. But every now and again there’s some item that simply can’t get sent to my address for whatever reason. Haven’t figured out any sort of a pattern to it either. I’ll have a bunch of stuff in an order, and one or two things randomly can’t be sent to my address, but the rest can? It’s very frustrating.

Blunion05 drives a pink S2000 (USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST) > gogmorgo - rowing gears in a Grand Cherokee 10/30/2016 at 22:08

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Does that include items that are shipped and/or fulfilled by Amazon?

gogmorgo - rowing gears in a Grand Cherokee > Blunion05 drives a pink S2000 (USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST) 10/30/2016 at 22:41

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Yes and/or yes. And Amazon is the only place I’ve had this issue. Everything else I order from other online sources always gets here, but sometimes Amazon won’t even try. Even stuff that’s shipping from the same place has had things picked off. And the other thing that makes no sense to me is that in about 25% of cases I can just have those items sent to my parents instead, and they’re further off the beaten track than I am.

Blunion05 drives a pink S2000 (USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST) > gogmorgo - rowing gears in a Grand Cherokee 10/30/2016 at 22:45

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Then there’s certainly no room for excuse if other retailers can get to you. Something sounds fishy for Amazon orders not able to get to your door step 100% of the time.

gogmorgo - rowing gears in a Grand Cherokee > Blunion05 drives a pink S2000 (USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST) 10/30/2016 at 23:07

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They do, when they actually get sent. But why pick and choose what they can or can’t send without giving any explanation is the frustrating part. If there was some reason for it I could understand and not be happy about it, but when it’s this spin the wheel game going on in the background... Yeah.

That’s my big deal with customer service. I don’t demand instant satisfaction. I understand things take time sometimes. I understand people make mistakes and problems happen. It’s life. But if you don’t tell me what’s going on, I’m not going to be happy at all.

Now I’m all worked up about this. Maybe I’ll send them that follow-up email tomorrow.