The new added value

How to do the right thing in business. subtitle: Don´t try this with DELL.


I used to work for IBM as a customer engineer. It was good fun in the seventies and up to the mid eighties. Then something unexpected happened that was not previously recognized by the company - massive cheap quality competition from mainly Japan. IBM answered (in panic) by trying to lock in its customers and do the same cheap business. The ¨spoilt¨ IBM customer was not used to this and consequently major accounts abandoned Big Blue more or less over night.

I left IBM when I started my flying career 1989, but continued to be a loyal IBM customer with my first companies.

IBM Thinkpad - my then product icon, was later sold to Chineese, Lenovo. Other parts of the IBM wreck got its footing back after management changes and major reconstruction - and is now doing quite well after that big scare in the late eighties.

Me, I turned to APPLE and have never looked back. I don´t even service my friends PCs anymore, mostly because of the really lousy Windows operating system that is often found on the otherwise reasonable hardware, a software that actually still - after all this years is not ready for the commercial market - Microsoft may call the release what ever they want - its still the same rubbish in the background.

As my favorite IBM customer Magnus Ekström said: (If you are a quality player) ¨You have to provide some fat for your customers, if not - others will.¨

This recent story is about that.

The 250 Gb disk drive on my faboulous iMac 24¨started to fail intermittent with slow read and write, in late 2008.
Coming home from Africa this year, the problem was worse and finally it acually flagged for a disk fault.
I hauled the unit to Mac Support in Malmo, and they confirmed the disk was in error. They said the machine was outside warranty, which was correct by calender time. However, I said - a disk-enclousure that fails within one and a half year can not be regarded a production fault free part. The Independent Mac Support agreed and asked me to make the claim to Apples support desk. I did so, and was quickly redirected to a nice (Norwegian) girl, Cathrina, that listened to my complaint and my argument: that it was a static desk computer that has not even been running for a full year - as it is turned off when I´m in Africa every year.

Apple then agreed (under the circumstances) to grant me a new disk, but they could not sponsor the work cost of Mac Support. I said that was never my intention, I only wanted them to take responsibility for a ¨not up to standard¨ failed part. The failed disk was of course backed up by my 1 Tb, Apple Time Capsuel - so no worries!

This is how you get success with your customers - or as SAAB once replied to their lousy quality record in America in the nineties, ¨A customer that have had a fault, and swiftly had it responsibly corrected - is more positive towards the brand than the one that never had a fault.¨

I believe this is true - even though it didn´t help SAAB in the long run, but that´s an entirely other story.

Now - go out there and buy a bunch of Apples!

OR - You can buy it from the threelilybuds.com website with free home delivery! - How about that!

note: Microsoft does wonders with software like The Office Package - that actually works better on MACs than on PCs!)
So Bill, you are not all bad.