The Flip Side

I had some issues with my iPod today and had to contact Apple customer service about it. I figured I would leave a message, they would call me back at their convenience, not mine, and I would be playing phone tag until I gave up.

Instead, I went to the website, answered some quick questions about my problem, clicked on the button that said I wanted to be contacted immediately, and waited. For a second. I'm not kidding, about a second after I clicked the button, our home phone rang. When I answered it, the computerized voice said, "An Apple representative will be with you shortly." The cynic in me immediately thought, here we go with the waiting. Now I'll probably have to keep pressing buttons until I give up. The cynic in me only had a second to think about it, though. The next second I heard a live person asking if he had Kelly on the phone and confirmed what my problem was.

When the easiest solution became downloading 1/2 of my library of 600+ songs again, he said he would wait to see if we could catch the culprit that caused my problem in the first place. He would wait? And I wasn't being charged for him to wait? In the time that I was called, to the time he was done, Stein went and took a shower, and was back downstairs. And the whole time we waited for the computer to do its thing we talked about music and computers. It wasn't creepy; he wasn't asking me where I lived or what I did for a living. We just talked about the various artists that were in my library (John Denver started the whole conversation on a funny note - no pun intended), and some of the bands that he worked for as a sound technician.

I found the whole experience to be helpful and refreshing. So different than the crazy customer service experience with the hotel. My belief in good customer service has been restored. Now if only I remembered his name, I could write a positive letter this time.