How to Lose a Customer in Only One Day

I have an Apple iPhone.  And for full disclosure, I am not an Apple aficionado.  The only other Apple products I own are two iPods.  I own an iPhone because I started work at a company where I was going to be customer facing, and was working on my presence, and picked the same phone as the president of the company.  And I will never own another Apple product ever again.

This isn't really about Apple products, but about customer service.  And how your service department can do irreparable damage to your company's image.  

First a bit about me.  I started my career as an electronics technician, installing and maintaining high end medical X-Ray equipment.  Over the years I have attended a number of classes on customer relations and from the beginning have taken them to heart.  Most of my colleagues thought this was new age Bulls##t, but I saw the immediate value at what was being taught.  

There are two steps to customer relations:

     1) Fix the customer

     2) Fix the problem

In that order.  

Picture this.  You customer's GenerateCashOTron 2000 has been down all morning.  (when in truth it is 10 am so an hour and a half) You walk in and flip a switch, and everything turns on.  And then you walk out.  You have fixed the problem but not the customer.  He is still seething over the fact that his money maker was out of action at all, and he is going to let someone know about it!  You have to engage the customer and fix them as well.

A great video was created by John Cleese on field service as part of his business videos collection.  But he wants $1,000/ copy for it so only poor copies exist on YouTube as an example.

So my iPhone was broken.  I cracked the screen.  This is in the days where we were quarantined by the Covid-19 pandemic, so I couldn't just take it to the nearby Apple store for repair.  But Apple was up to the task.  One day later, I had a shipping box in my hand and a small manual with step by step instructions.  Well done so far!

One side issue is the size of this manual, the pages are 4 inches square.  One step to a page, and in 3 languages.  See below.

Pretty close to actual size.

There is a lot of white space here, so there is no reason that the print is 4 point font.  Making this more annoying to read is the choice of light grey lettering on a white glossy background.  Excellent production values, but a total failure in readability.

But read it I did, each step was understood completely as written.  But I could not execute step five, see above. I tried several times with tools at my disposal, but I could not get the SIM card drawer out.  So rather than risk further damaging the phone, I let it ride and decided to ship the card with the phone.  I am not a duffer here, I have repaired high end electronic equipment for decades.  I have tools that a Swiss watchmaker would be proud of, but none that could liberate that drawer.  

A week later the phone was returned, the screen shiny and new.  But on bootup, the phone went into first time startup mode and a message that the SIM card is missing.

Unknown to me then, Apple has a policy against shipping SIM cards with their products.  So someone actively removed my SIM card and disposed of it at the repair facility.  

I contacted Apple and told the fist tier responder that while my phone's original problem was fixed, it still does not work.

A bit of back and forth and she declared it was my fault because I didn't follow the instructions, see step 5, above.  

Nowhere in step five does it explain that if I do not follow this step that Apple will proactively render my phone totally unusable for the foreseeable future.

In the customer relations world, this is known as "Blaming the Customer".  Don't do this.  Ever.

I went up to the next level.  She asked me if I used the tool sent with the box to open the SIM card drawer.  There was no tool provided, and the example, refer to the image above, shows a paper clip to use for the task.  Which I also tried, but failed with.  And she also declared this was my fault that the Apple technician removed and disposed of my SIM card and there was nothing she could do about it.

So far Apple has not done either of the following:

     1) Fix the customer

     2) Fix the problem

In that order.  

And then Apple made the problem worse by blaming the customer.  Several times, by not following explicit instructions, and by not using tools that were not provided.

Even though it took a conscious effort by Apple to cause this problem in the first place.

Then I was pushed to the actual customer relations department.  He was compassionate, and he agreed this problem shouldn't had happened.  He called the repair department to see if the SIM card could be located.  He agreed it was not my fault. He agreed to go to the billing department to see if the cost of a replacement card could be removed from the bill.  I don't think that will happen but at least I was heard and acknowledged that this problem should not have occurred.

He went a long way to fixing the customer.  But not totally.  And he still did not fix the problem.  That was placed solidly back on the customer.  But he was good about it. 

In the end, Apple took a phone with a cracked screen, but still worked, and returned a phone with a repaired screen, BUT DID NOT WORK.  And cost shifted the repair to the customer, who paid to have it fixed in the first place.

I will never buy another Apple product ever again.

Update.  It is a week later, and the phone is still not working.  It is not strictly Apples fault, but the SIM card is being shipped by slow boat from Idaho.   But if they had not caused the problem, I would be a happier customer. 

We Are Now All Sorcerers

In the last ten years, we have undergone a profound change as a people.  We became Sorcerers.  By that, I mean we have come to have a level of control and abilities, indistinguishable from magic a hundred years ago.  It began with the invention of the smartphone (1992), and accelerated by the introduction of the iPhone (2007) and the melding this invention to the internet (1983).  Current smartphone penetration is approaching 80% in first world nations.

The smartphone has become our Sorcerer’s magic wand.  Through it we not only communicate, but have information retrieval abilities exceeding all the libraries of the world anywhere in time.  With web enabled products, we also have the controls to perform magic.  However, these abilities rest on a vast infrastructure, that can only be described the largest, most complex machine, ever built.

This is really not a new event.  Since the industrial revolution, the average person has at his beck and call powers and abilities that kings would have envied.   Hot water on demand (1889)?  Plentiful food of all types year round (early 1800's)?  Chariots with the power of 100 horses (1910)?  To travel thousands of miles a day (1903)?  To communicate anywhere around the world instantly?  We have grown accustomed to these marvels.

Galaxy Smartphone.  Image stolen without permission.

Why the comparison of this technological marvel to the fantasy world of magic?  There are so many apt analogies.  What is fiber optics but ley lines, embedded in the earth?  What are nodes but intersections of ley lines?  Your baud rate diminishes the further away you are from nearby towers, is akin to drawing mana from magical sources.  Cameras are our wizard eyes.  Web sites our weather predictors.  Audible indicators that someone is trying to reach us are invisible servants.  Create light spells on demand! This doesn’t begin to count sensors you can add on to tell you anything you may want to know.  Geiger counters, breathalyzers, printers, weather gauges, 3 D imagery glasses with heads up displays of things around you. 

Most of us are now Sorcerers, we know how to use the magic, but have no clue as to how they work.  Some of us are Wizards, and understand the underpinnings and create new spells (Apps).  But the truth is, we are all still very low level at this time, and still learning, adapting and creating in this new world we find ourselves in.

I am more of a Wizard than a Sorcerer.  But my wizardry is more involved with the deep underpinnings of how the infrastructure works.  As such, I am not a very good Sorcerer.  But day to day life with my own magic wand for the past few years has improved my abilities in that regard.  When I use an app, I don’t just see the result, but I internally diagram how the whole system works, from the display on the screen, the interconnections to the towers, the internet, servers, data storage, and back.  Along the way I see redirects and calls for advertising, cookie reading, and encryptions.

Learning the use of the apps has been a steep learning curve.  Every app is crafted by a unique individual.  Each person does things they way they think best.  And there are millions of them.  Each works a little differently but each one also increases your magical abilities. 

I experienced a culture clash in this regard about 7 years back, when my nephew was thinking about completing his education overseas.  Which I thought was a good idea until he said he was thinking about Argentina.  His rational was simple.  He has friends from Argentina.  I thought this was a bad idea because Argentina was in an economic meltdown.  “What will you do if there is a revolt or if Argentina steals all your money in the bank”?  They already had done this.

He held up his phone, “My money is in a New York Bank.”

I thought about that, and the systems involved.  “That’s ok, until they cut off the internet from the rest of the world.  You won’t have access to your money.  Then you better know where US Embassy is.”

I could tell my words had no meaning to him.  For his entire life, the internet is omnipresent at all times.  It took some time to explain it to him, using examples from Syria and China.  I don’t know if my words took root, but eventually he finished his schooling elsewhere.

It was then I came up with the metaphor, “Wizards and Sorcerers”.  I was a Wizard*, he was a Sorcerer.  I knew intimately how the technology worked, but not how to actually use it.  He was reliant upon the magic, and was skilled at its use, but had no clue how it worked. 

I have revisited this metaphor recently.  I have had a true smartphone for 3 years now.  How much I have grown dependent upon my magic wand is amazing.  This came home last week as I had to ship it for repairs.  With the current Coronavirus Pandemic, there was nowhere within 50 miles to get it fixed, so I’ll be a week or more without it.

The things I could not do any more until it returns.  Many of these things can be performed by other means, but not with the same convenience as with the magic wand.

1)      After my Car GPS Failed, this task was replaced with the smartphone.

2)      My home thermostat has to be adjusted by hand.

3)      Many of my streaming services are on the phone, then casted to the TV via a dongle.

4)      I have to talk to my home assistant to turn on and off the main lights in the house.

5)      When watching TV, I cannot look up things that strike my interest.

6)     My phone immediately lets me know there is an email coming in.  My computer is set to send/receive every 15 minutes.

7)     I cannot receive incoming calls, nor access my voice mail. You would think this would be number 1 on the list.

8)    No texts.  Some of which currently would involve home improvement/repairs currently in progress.

9)     My ambient noise generator I use to sleep to.

10)   My information services, via podcasts.

11)   All my music.

12)   I use the camera for a number of functions.  Including measurements of distances.

13)   A ready flashlight.

14)   Ready information when on the road.

15)  This is pandemic related.  Picking up orders from take-away restaurants require texting them to let you know you are there so they can run your food to the car.

16)   Weather

17)   Stock prices

18)   Commodity prices

19)   Magnifier

20)   Games

21)   Peeking around corners or behind unmovable objects.

22)   I didn’t have my phone set up with some form of digital payment, but in these days of the pandemic, I see the value.  In the drive through lane, people just hold up their phone and it is read by a scanner.  No physical contact with cash or credit card.

Dilbert visited this issue a couple years ago:

In a final note.  There is an overused quote, more true now, then ever, “We are all connected to everyone and everything in the universe”.  And while we all have more power to affect our surroundings, we are also more aware of how great our surroundings are, and how small we are within them.

* My son disagrees, he says I am a Cleric.  I get out the phone and pray that it works :)