Rejection 77: Fix a PC at the Apple Store

Commercial rivalries are some of the most intense rivalries in the world. We have Coke vs Pepsi, McDonald's vs Berger King, and Intel vs AMD. Of course, in the past decade, you can't mention business rivalry without mentioning Mac vs PC, whose TV ads turned personal with frontal attacks on each other. Personally, I use many products from both Mac and PC worlds. I have always wondered if I take a product from one company, and take it to the store that belongs to another, how would the store employees react? Today, I decided to try it by taking my PC ultra-book to an Apple store, asking for a repair.

To my surprise, Patrick from the Apple Genius Bar didn't seem to be surprised/upset by my requests at all. He did trouble-shooting with me, while making it clear that his store can't support non-Mac hardware in term of actual repair. He even mentioned that he learned something new as well. It would be very easy to say 'no' up front. His effort and attitude were really impressive.

One of comments by James Ham on Facebook page said "that goes to show that some people really enjoy their work." I completely agree. I feel companies need to focus 50% of their customer support effort on making their employees happy, instead of focusing purely on customers. Because the best and most genuine supports come from happy employees wanting to help customers, not unhappy employees pretending or trained to be helpful.

Learning:

1. Ask a paid customer, don't be afraid to make requests in a reasonable and respectful manner. You can find out the quality of customer service from the company in a hurry.

2. Happy employees give great customer service. Make your employees happy.