My MacBook Pro hard drive died on me last night, with great expectations of Apple after sales support, here’s what I encountered…

Let’s start from the beginning, my trust 6 month old MacBook Pro was running EyeTV(digital TV receiver software for watching digital programming with PVR capabilities on a Mac) last night when I started hearing clicking noises and the picture on the screen just froze. I thought the software had crashed and the noise was just the audio looping. However, with the instinct that it could have been the hard drive, I powered the machine down and started up again only this time with my external hard drive plugged in. I backed up the important bits like my work but left the movies, pictures and everything else.

The next time I came to switch on my Mac that same night, it was stuck on the grey boot screen with the Apple logo centred and the spinning load icon. A louder than usual clicking noise was coming from the bottom left of the unit and I was sure as anything that the hard drive had died on me.

Three thoughts are running through my mind at that point. One was, phew, I backed up my important data. The second, damn I lost my pictures and videos. Third was damn, it’s near Christmas and there’s a slight chance I might not get it back until the new year. Just to put things straight, I’m running on the standard Apple warranty and I purchased this laptop from electrical retailer Currys who use Apple as the service provider for any warranty issues.

Since I purchased this laptop from Currys, I rang up their ‘24 hour, 365 day’ a year support line only to be met with the dead ring tone. No holding, not even music or anything, just a dead tone. So I guess they had gone home. What really annoys me about this, is the double standard that this company has on their support. In reality it’s 24 hour, 365 days support except for Macs products. That aside, I rang back early afternoon today and went through the motions. Rang the Currys ‘Tech Guys’ and got through to the Apple section for laptop problems. I explained the problem and they then told me that the service provider is Apple themselves and I’ll need to ring them up to get the product fixed. I dialled and to be fair I got through near straight away. It was less than 5 minutes to get through, but when I got through it was quite clear to me this was a foreign call centre.

That aside, I continued to explain the problem and the guy on the other end of the phone tells me that he can’t help me with this problem because it’s a hardware issue and I will need to take it to an Apple Authorised Service Centre to get it fixed. Hold on a second, did he just say, I would have to take it to the service centre? I questioned as to why there was no courier service like they usually do, or what Currys normally does and the technician tells me it’s because they would then have to ship the thing back to Holland, and the expense and work involved in doing that is more than it’s worth, so it’s easier to use service centres instead.

To top all this of, I told the guy that my laptop was only 6 months old and within its 12 month warranty and asked him whether I would be charged by this Authorised Service Centre for the repair. He told me he can’t guarantee that I wouldn’t be charged and I would need to call them to find out. Unbelievable! If I hadn’t known my rights or any better, I would then be thinking that I could possibly be billed for this problem.

Going back to what Currys offers in their standard 12 month warranty, is they provide a courier collection from an address or pick up from the store you drop it of at. Would that be so unreasonable? Seems like a double standard to me. I can only assume that this is standard procedure for the 12 month Apple warranty, and I guess that?��Ǩ�Ѣs what the AppleCare protection programme is all about.

If the Apple warranty is going to continue to be 90 days only, then I can foresee many people, as Apple computers become more popular, facing a big issue. If an Apple switcher has just gone from Brand X machine to a nice brand new MacBook, and experiences a problem beyond the 90 day AppleCare warranty, they would ring the retailer up and make the complaint there, told to go away and ring AppleCare, only for Apple to tell them you have to get it serviced at an Apple Authorised Centre. The best they can do for you is to provide you with their phone number and address details. It’s a joke when your in a situation where if you could buy a ?Ǭ�300 laptop and with the standard 12 month warranty, expect to get it couriered from your home if you experience any problems.

However if you purchase a ?Ǭ�1300 Apple laptop, you have to ring up to find out the Apple service number and then be told by them that they wont pick it up but they will give me the address details and contact number of the place I need to take it to, to get it fixed. See the dilemma that a customer might face when choosing to spend ?Ǭ�1400 on a Mac or ?Ǭ�1400 on Brand X laptop? So that sparks the question, how on Earth, is Apple able to score so highly in their customer service ratings?

Are they doing things differently in the US (which is often where most of these statistics/news stories come from)?

Am I being picky about what I’m being offered here? Should I be happy with this standard of service and accept it because I’m a Mac user? I’m hoping that you all agree with on the main issue here is the drastically different level of service you can expect to get when you purchase a Mac over a Windows based machine.

So what can Currys/Apple learn from this experience? First of all, Currys could have formed a better contract with Apple with regards to the warranty agreement they have in place. I don’t think it’s acceptable that there’s a double standard when it comes to warranty levels with a Mac based product as opposed to a PC based product. It should be the same at the very least. As far as helping to get more people to switch to a Mac, this problem we have here isn’t going to attract more switchers.

Secondly, Apple should offer AppleCare for 12 months as standard. No question about it, if a product as costly as a Mac offers inferior after sales care as a product which can often cost as little as a quarter of the cost of a Mac then you most certainly expect to get at least the same if not better support either from the retailer or the manufacturer. Get with the times Apple and offer a full 12 month collect and return service.

Apple on this occasion score a lowly 3 out of 10 and they only get that because they picked up the phone quickly.