Time was when purchasing an Apple computer was a pleasant experience. You went into your local Apple Store and browsed around. Maybe you did this a few times, poking at all the shiny machines on display. Eventually, one one of this visits you asked a sales associate to bring a cleverly packaged machine out for you to purchase.
For some reason, Apple appears to have decided that there was something lacking in the whole process. The hard sell. Fortunately, Apple appears to have moved to address this shortcoming in the experience of acquiring and owning a Macintosh.
Last May, the girlfriend and I went into the Palo Alto Apple store to pick up a Black MacBook. As soon as we entered the store a sales associate latched on and pushing us to ask what we were interested in. After we had gotten rid of that associate and spent a few minutes poking at the newly released MacBooks Nadyne was ready to buy one. She spoke to the nearest sales guy who asked if she wanted AppleCare which Nadyne declined. The associate then pushed asking a few times, “what will she do when the machine breaks down”? It took a lot of repeating that she didn’t want AppleCare before the associate stopped the pressure selling. He didn’t even stop after her statement that she works for the largest Mac development organization outside of Apple and so has ready access to Mac hardware experts. Both of us were surprised by the experience but wrote it off as a single associate being a little too eager.
After few days of drooling over Nadyne’s new toy, I picked up a black MacBook to upgrade my personal machine and didn’t experience any AppleCare pressure. It is now 11 months later, and Apple has started a hard sell for AppleCare. In the past week I’ve received 1 snail mail and 3 emails from Apple telling me that my warranty is about to expire and that I should purchase AppleCare.
This morning, an Apple drone phoned me at home and told me that my MacBook would soon be out of warranty. I explained that I was aware of that even though he was quoting an incorrect purchase date that would have me in warranty for another 6 months. Though I explained that know that that the warranty is about to expire and that I know about AppleCare but I am not interested since it has no value for me. A sensible telemarketer would have thanked me for my time and ended the call at this point.
Instead, the drone went on to ask “what if your MacBook breaks in a month’s time?”. I decided to ignore the Mafioso overtones and stated that I wasn’t interested in the extended warranty plan. The drone then challenged me and asked incredulously “why not?”. I explained that “I have been using Apple computers for well over 14 years and have only had one machine require repair during that time. (A repair that was covered during the limited warranty.)” That, “my experience with Apple machines means that I don’t see value in the extended warranty plan for me. If a machine breaks down out of warranty I will perform any necessary repair myself or replace the machine.”
The droid continued, explaining in a rather condescending tone that outside of the warranty period any technical support calls would cost $49.95 and that I wouldn’t want that. I explained that I have “placed a single technical support call to report an airport networking bug in the past 14 years and I do not need to insure myself against the service call fee.” “In addition, the pressure selling tactics on this call leaves me with the impression that current Apple computers are less reliable than earlier Apple machines and is starting to make me question any future Apple purchases”. At this point, the droid agreed with me. He actually said “yes”! This agreement means that either the tactics used by the droid implies that Apple machines are less reliable nowadays, or the machines are actually less reliable.
It would appear that Apple has switched to a policy of pressure-selling AppleCare. The droid continued pushing to sell AppleCare until I got fed up and explained again that “I am aware of the warranty on my MacBook and that I know about the AppleCare plan. but I am not interested, so thank you and goodbye.”
Time was when owning an Apple computer meant that you didn’t have to deal with unpleasant selling tactics from Apple… times have changed.
My family has a most interesting technique for this sort of thing – as the company cold calling you is paying for the call, they enter into long-winded reminiscences of anything loosely related to what they’re calling about.
My mum especially will, if she has time, do this for up to half an hour, then request an information pack through the post – at further expense to the company that has so rudely interrupted her evening!
Sam
When I received the call from the tele-marketer attempting to sell me Applecare, he used the typical persuasion technique – fear. Owning a Mac would be expensive. They walk the fine line between suggesting the Apple product is unreliable enough to require spending 200 bucks now so I won’t have to spend many hundreds later; and, it’s only $199 if I never used it. The thing I really took issue with was, I had to buy the Applecare now. Tomorrow would be too late. Two things sprang into my mind. One – this was a scam because no way a company like Apple would use such sleezy tactics; and Two, if Apple wants to sell Applecare badly enough to employ such tactics, it must be profitable, thus convincing me, odds are; additional insurance probably would not be needed. This telemarketer was so offensive, I almost asked him if this was same script all Apple telemarketers use, or was he just making up his patter as he want along? Perhaps they sit around the coffee room sharing success stories. Eitherway, it was not in my interest to open a dialogue. I hung up.
Now – in addition to all this, is trying to get your problem solved over the phone. Horror stories abound. Apple’s fortunes have rebounded and this; ‘treat the customer like shit’ is nothing more than the Apple Strut.
R