True story. I once wrote a rant of an email to Steve Jobs about how my MacBook had died and that my experience with Mac hardware had been abysmal: the number of actual repairs to my Macs outnumbered the number of Macs I owned!

I didn't leave my contact information. I just left the serial number to the latest computer to exhibit a problem.

That Monday (I wrote the rant on a Saturday) I got a phone call on my cell phone. The voice said "Hi, I'm from Apple Executive Relations. I'm calling because you emailed our CEO Steve Jobs. I understand that you have been having some problems with your MacBook." After the shock wore off that somebody actually phoned me, I confirmed the details. "Okay, I see that you're in Toronto. Would you be able to take your MacBook into store X? I know Joe (I forget the actual name) who is their lead technician. He will ensure that your MacBook is repaired for you and that you do not lose any data, as I understand that you need your MacBook for a conference in a few days (I mentioned this in the email). If that repair does not fix the underlying problem, then I'll authorize a replacement unit. But I would appreciate if you would try this repair one more time. The problem you are having with your MacBook was a difficult issue for us to diagnose and a new unit might actually still have the faulty part in it. We now know what the exact cause is and I'm confident our repair will fix things once and for all. Is this acceptable?"

At this point, he had gained my confidence and I was rather calm. His suggestion sounded reasonable, so I took it into the store. "Joe" the technician indeed took care of my repair, told me that he'd received a phone call from Apple. The part that was needed for the repair had been tremendously backordered because the fault was widespread. He said typically that the wait time was 5-7 business days, but that the Executive Relations guy had gone in and manually inserted me into the head of the queue. It was 3 pm. I would have my MacBook repaired and in my hands before noon the next day, as he'd been ordered to tend to my MacBook first.

At 11 am the next day I got a phone call from the store that my MacBook was ready to be picked up. Sure enough it was repaired and still works fine to this day. I got a voicemail from the Executive Relations guy soon afterward telling me that he had seen in the system that my MacBook was repaired. He wanted to know if everything was working well. If I had any problems, he said I should give him a call.

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Anyways, moral of the story. I really believe in phoning the customer and speaking with them. Note that this person did not actually offer me anything more than I would have been offered if I had just taken my MacBook in to get repaired on my own (except jumping the queue on the backordered part). What he did offer me was peace of mind and the feeling that I wasn't just a number on their balance sheet somewhere. The Executive Relations guy did everything right:

1. He empathized with me.

2. He tried to understand my problem.

3. He fixed my problem.

That's just basic customer service, but you need the whole package. Just paying lip service or empathizing without actually resolving the matter at hand can actually make a customer even angrier. Also, telling the customer s/he is "right" when they aren't right is a recipe for disaster. The customer is not always right. That said, the customer always comes first. There's a difference.