Outstanding Apple Service!

While I was very excited to have the first iPhone4 in Dubai and raved about it on my blog the first 2 days I got it, if you've been following me on Twitter you'll know that my experience with the device was less than amazing once the initial euphoria wore off. My device happened to be one of those inflicted with poor proximity sensors that muted my calls, or put them on hold and more often that not, hung them up by not blacking out the screen while I was on the phone. Since my friend Jimmy had bought our phones via the Apple store in the UK, I thought I'd go in and see what they had to say about the problems I was having. I really expected them to tell me to wait for the much awaited software update which will fix all my woes with the device.. instead they directed me to a man called Joe who listened to me patiently, fiddled around with my phone for a bit, went away and brought me back some service forms to sign. "Are you going to be sending in my phone for a service?" I asked, alarmed as I am leaving London on Tuesday. "No," he said smiling, "we're replacing it." Just like that. No questions asked. No proof of purchase required. No begging involved. Is it possible I could love Apple (and Steve) more than I already do?
The day before I was leaving Dubai I was going through one of those governed-by-Murphy's-law type of days. I needed to return some stuff at Debenhams that I'd bought a few days prior, but had misplaced the receipt. I went to the store and was told I just couldn't return the items and they couldn't do anything for me without a receipt. Never mind that the clothes still had the tags and the Debenhams sticker on it- they just couldn't, or wouldn't, help. When I asked to see the Manager, he in fact said that a receipt wouldn't have helped either as I was trying to return the merchandise at Mirdiff City Center although I had bought it at MOE. Hmmm.. Real sense that makes! A few hours prior to that I was struggling at Boutique 1 at JBR with another service related issue- a friend of mine had given me 2 gift certificates worth 500 AED each, and I was trying to redeem her very generous gift before I left town. Turns out they insisted that only one of the cards had the money on them but the second one was a dud. A potentially VERY embarassing problem for gift giver AND receiver! Luckily she was a close enough friend for me to call up and narrate the problem too, and she organized to have her credit card receipts confirming the purchase. They finally found the "lost" money more than an hour later, but the joy of buying a gorgeous pair of Linda Farrow sunglasses was completely lost! Later that evening my cursed day continued as I went over to watch the latest Bollywood blockbuster that I'd been dying to see before I left town. A friend of mine had been nice enough to head all the way to Mirdiff the day prior, and secure us the best seats in the house for the evening show the next day. While we were walking towards the movie theatre, he checked to see the exact timing of the show only to see that the  tickets had been issued to him for 10 AM that morning! When he went to let them know what happened, they shot him down saying they couldn't do anything for us, and after some yelling, agreed to swap the tickets for the show we wanted. Despite being the first ones to buy the tickets, we were stuck on the second row watching the movie.
You can understand then why I wanted to yell with delight and hug Joe at the Apple store for the outstanding service I received. However, I decided to contain myself and requested to take his picture to post up here instead. There is such a huge gap between service levels of companies within the UK and US, and those in Dubai. We can have the best of malls selling the best of brands from the western world- we need to take a page out of their customer service book as well!

                                 The man who saved the day (and my phone)- Joe

                                 The gorgeous Apple Store at Regent Street, London
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