Chris Writes.

UPDATE: My computer is now fixed, and the folks at Apple did the right thing, owned up to the situation, and apologized. While my experience was unfortunate, I can’t fault their willingness to deal with the problem head on, and solve it as best as possible.

—–

Below is a verbatim letter I wrote to Apple regarding my current experiences in trying to get my computer repaired.  I’m posting it here because I think the broader heuristic here applies well outside of the world of computers.  Basically: I think it’s often the combination of talented/smart humans, and the appropriate systems that they rely on, that create success stories.  The humans or the systems alone are not independently sufficient, no matter how good the human, or how marvelous the system.

Ask yourself which of the two you might have a hand in improving, then go do it.  K, thx.

____

Dear Apple,

It’s now been 3 weeks since I dropped off my MacBookPro at the Apple Store in Los Gatos, CA to be repaired.  The diagnosis was a failed logic board, and I was told it would take 5 to 7 days to get back.  This would be a good time to cue the ominous, foreboding, DRM-free music.

My complaint is not with anyone at Apple with whom I’ve spoken – so far, I’ve only come across intelligent, reasonable people.  My feedback that I hope somehow makes it through this anonymous web-based radio-button interaction is as follows: your intelligent, reasonable people seem to lack the tools required to answer my single most important question:  “when will I get my computer back?”

To me, this seems like a reasonable question, and one you certainly must anticipate with formidable alacrity.  Yet, it’s impossible to get an answer to it, or at least, so it seems to me.  Here’s an account of what led me to this thinking:

1. The people at the Apple Store (Los Gatos) could not tell me if the parts I needed were in stock.  They could only confirm that they ordered them.  The parts took  10 days to arrive, my daily  calls after day 7 were not able to get a response any more enlightened than “maybe tomorrow or the next day, we never know what we are getting shipped until it gets here”.  I heard this several times, from different people, on different days.  If the computer had arrived on time, I would not have had to go on a business trip to Montreal with a Dell that I borrowed from our IT department, and which lacked any of the programs I rely on.  But I soldiered on.
2. When my parts arrived, it was discovered that other problems existed. My computer would now have to be sent to “depot”, which sounds ominous.  The delivery counter was reset: again, 5 to 7 days.
3. After 7 days went by, my calls to the guys in Los Gatos were met with an equally cryptic confirmation that my computer had made it to the depot as planned, but that it’s status was “awaiting parts”. When I pressed for more info, reasonable questions including “what parts?” and “how long will it take to get these parts?”, they said they could not tell me.  They directed me to the Apple Care 800 number.  I was starting to realize that my next business trip, this time to Europe, was going to involve the same loaner Dell.  The retail store had offered to sell me a new computer, and then waive the restocking fee if I later returned it, but I was not exactly comfortable shelling out over $2k of my money to borrow your computer.
4. I called the 800 number, and had a conversation with a nice woman there who confirmed that she could also tell me nothing about when my computer would be completed and returned to me.  Apparently she had no visibility into the repair any more than the Retail folks did.  “Awaiting parts”, she said.  “But it might be done tomorrow or the next day.”  I told her I wasn’t exactly full of optimism.  I asked her why she couldn’t be more specific, and she said she simply didn’t have access to the information.  I also asked her if we could modify the ship-to address so that the computer could perhaps be shipped to me while I was on my business trip, but this too was impossible.  I asked her if she realized that this policy didn’t make any sense.  She said yes, she realized that.

So you see, it seems as though, in an era of RFID tags, shipping automation, UPS real-time tracking, GPS, and a litany of other advances, we’ve reached an age where we can pretty accurately predict things like product pipeline time, delivery, and other details – if every Apple was hand-made by a team of Swiss engineers who handcrafted not just each computer, but each microprocessor in a bespoke fashion similar to that of High Street wingtips, then I’d have a greater understanding of the situation.  But we’re talking about mass-produced silver boxes that contain other metal bits, all of which come from big factories that likely rival fighter jets in complexity and systems integration.

The fact that you can’t tell me where my computer is suggests only two possible scenarios to me:

1. A concerted effort against me, specifically, for something I did.  I know not what.
2. An utter failure on your part to provide your people with the information and systems they need to do their jobs in a way that makes sense to me, the customer on the other end of the phone.

If it was #1, then please let me know what I did so I can properly apologize.

Thanks,

Chris Matthews