As alluded to in my last post, I’ve been experiencing a cascade of technology failures. They’ve stopped now, if for no other reason than that there’s nothing left to break (I wonder if I’ll regret typing that . . .). A number of these items were in warranty, and some were not (sadly, my primary camera is included in that group). For certain items under warranty, it was simply easier to buy a replacement than try and make a claim (e.g., my desktop power supply). I really dislike disposible consumer goods, though. As a general rule, I pay a premium for quality goods/services and expect the manufacturers/providers to stand behind them if there’s a problem. Unfortunately, that’s not an expectation that is always met (especially by tech companies, and I’m looking at you, Verizon FIOS). In any event, rather than getting myself working up by going on about what went wrong with my recent warranty claim efforts, I thought I’d share a couple of cases where it went right.

Late last year, the electronic display panel on the dash of my car started to fail, losing pixels and going dark in places. It didn’t affect the operability of the vehicle, and I could still understand the information on display – but it was just ugly. The car is a 2000 BMW, which I bought used (from a BMW dealer) in 2002. It’s well out of warranty, so I popped online to try and figure out how much a repair would cost. I was surprised to find that I wasn’t the only one having this problem. While most of the discussions on the issue involved repair under warranty, a few seemed to have luck in getting BMW to bear the costs of a display replacement (>$500) even though they were out of warranty.

Given both the age and mileage of my car, I didn’t think I’d have much luck with getting BMW to extend any assistance on the matter. Nevertheless, with low expectations, I sent off an email to BMW outlining the problem and asking them whether they could help cover the repair. A couple of days later, I was shocked to get a phone call from customer relations at BMW of North America. We had a very polite and efficient conversation – she asked me to describe the problem, and then answer a few questions about my purchase and service history. All quite friendly, and none of the multiple blame-the-customer tactics that are so common these days. She thanked me for my time, and told me that she would be in touch with me the next day. She called back, as promised, and told me that BMW would be happy to cover the part, if I would cover the labor (~$100). If I agreed, she would make the necessary arrangements with my dealer, and I could call whenever I wanted to make an appointment to have that done. I happily agreed.

This struck me as quite fair to all involved. BMW (both the manufacturer, and my dealer) has consistently stood behind the car, making it right when it failed to live up to my expectations of BMW quality. Instead of washing its hands of responsibility, BMW has twice now made post-warranty repairs on items that were clearly issues of manufacturer quality. First, it spent about $1000 replacing a radiator a few months after the warranty had expired, and now $500 on replacing the dashboard display (well out of warranty). All communication was prompt and truthful. As a result, I’m reasonably confident that I will get my money’s worth when I buy a BMW and that they’ll make it right if there’s a problem. I don’t plan on buying a new car anytime soon – I buy a car with the expectation of driving it a couple hundred thousand miles – but when I do need a new car, I’ll be looking at BMWs. As a result, BMW’s happy: they have a committed customer who speaks highly of them; and I’m happy: I have a car I enjoy without the worry of unexpected unreasonable costs. I paid for excellent customer service and got it.

I can’t say that my experience was so uniformly positive with Apple, but they did make it right in the end. Not too long ago, I was ready to give up on them entirely. In 2004, I’d purchased a new Powerbook from Apple, with the AppleCare extended warranty. In the following years, the screen had to be replaced three times (all defective from the factory – meaning that they didn’t even do a decent quality control check when sending a repair back to me), the hard drive was replaced, and I ended up going through multiple pieces of expensive RAM (on my dime) because Apple kept trying to pin the problems on bad (third party, natch) RAM. In early Feburary, the Powerbook once again started randomly freezing, and I took it back to the local Apple store (of which the consistently unpleasant experience is best left for another time). I was very clear with them about my unhappiness with my experience. Understanding that even the best manufacturers occassionally have problems with quality, I said I was was tired of being the one who suffered from that quality control problem over and over and over. I told them that I wanted it fixed *right*, this time (admittedly, I didn’t really have an “or else” at the ready). To my suprise, they didn’t go through their usual “It’s not us, it’s you” spiel, and even went to far as to tell me that if this repair didn’t fix it, they would replace my computer. They put that promise in writing, which is what let me leave the store reasonably happy, even if I was once again without my laptop.

The happiness, however, only lasted through the weekend. Early the next week, Apple’s status page showed my repair as being “on hold – awaiting part”. Recalling stories about repairs languishing for months, I called Apple to find out what part it was waiting for, and to get an estimated time for repair. Four connections later, I found out that it was the motherboard being replaced (which probably ought to have been replaced the first time it went in), and that it would take another three weeks. Unacceptable.

In fact, I repeated “unacceptable” through at least three sets of AppleCare reps (this was a very long call) until I got to someone who agreed with me. At this point, I was looking for two things. One, I wanted some acknowledgement that it was, in fact, unacceptable that my laptop had been in so many times for repairs. This could have come first in the form of an apology, but also in the form of a promise of a loaner laptop (I don’t think Apple does this, but I wasn’t aware of that at the time). The second thing I wanted was something – anything – backing up that apology. That this included fixing my laptop goes should go without saying, of course. I wanted them to offer me an extension of my AppleCare warranty, or even some amount off of a new computer (I wouldn’t have taken them up on that, but it was the offer that counted, at this point). Instead, Apple surprised me. Quite a bit, actually. They offered to replace my Powerbook with a brand new Mac Book Pro at no cost to me.

The replacement offer was more than fair, to be honest. The Mac Book Pro is a better laptop than the Powerbook it was to replace. They made sure that I had no “feature loss” – i.e., that the replacement laptop had at least as much hard drive space, memory, and optical media capabilities as my existing laptop. They then offered me the option of purchasing upgrades, if I wanted any (I didn’t, but it was good to be offered the choice). Once the decision had been made to replace my laptop, communication from Apple (on what would happen with my old laptop, when to expect my new one, etc.) was superb. Calls were returned immediately, nothing was left unclear, and they generally got rid of the feeling that I was being jerked around. The new laptop arrived yesterday, and I’m writing on it now. I have the option of either transferring my existing AppleCare (runs out next month) or buying a new AppleCare plan (extending warranty coverage to March 2009). While I would have preferred a laptop that worked without any problems from the beginning, this is not at all a bad return on the original $2300 investment in April 2004.

Unlike BMW, Apple dug a pretty deep hole with me before making it right. Further, this entire experience has led me to doubt Apple quality, instead of reinforcing my original postive perception of it. That said, when a company is willing to replace my old and nearly out-of-warranty laptop with an expensive piece of new hardware, well, it earns my respect and appreciation. Once the decision to replace had been made, there were no hidden charges, no upsells, no anything but prompt and courteous communication. They recognized that they’d failed this particular customer, and in the end, incurred significant expense in making it right.

Both of these companies are the types of companies that I prefer to deal with as a consumer. When I know a company will deliver on its sales floor promises, I will gladly pay more for its products or services. I wish I had that option every time I made a purchase.