I started to try and write this post without naming the product, but a) It was really hard to do that and b) I had an experience with another phone that made me want to compare the two experiences directly.
As you know, I love my Nokia 9500. I've blogged about it, written about it on newsgroups and love to show it off whenever I can. I feel that I have, in every way available to me, been a true evangelist for this product. When I take it out and people gawk at it and I can't wait to show them all of the cool things it does and talk it up as much as I can. I even compare it to the sexy category killer that I also have and tell people that my product may not look as sexy. but it's better in almost every way. I've even written people at the company, telling them how much I love their product and how I'd love to get the new version and write about how cool it is on my blog.
But now I'm having problems with my phone and I'm starting to lose my love. It seems that my particular phone shouldn't have been sold to me in this country and I now can't get some necessary repairs here. (If you're interested in the whole story, you can read the whole story at Experience Manifesto: When Good Retailers Go Bad.) Every time I call or ask someone at Nokia, I'm told there's nothing they can do for me here, since the phone is from Malaysia. I even asked the woman what Nokia would do if I was traveling from Malaysia and visiting the US and had the same software problems and I was actually told that I'd still need to send it back to Malaysia to get fixed. What kind of service is that? How could they not have the global software available to them at all Nokia locations? I mean, how hard could that be?
But as I said at the start, I was going to write this without talking about Nokia ('cause I really do still love my 9500!) but then I had an experience with my Apple iPhone that just shows what unbelievably good experiences companies can deliver, and I couldn't hide my feelings any more. I love my Nokia and can't really get help and I'm OK with my iPhone and just had one of the best customer experiences ever!
As you know from my previous post, I broke my iPhone after dropping it on the pavement while out in Santa Monica this weekend. I called Apple and was told the repair would be $249. I was so pissed about the whole thing (and, in particular how stupid I was to drop it in the first place), that it was really putting a real damper on being out here for my sister-in-laws wedding (which, BTW, was a really fun wedding!). So, I went to the Apple store in Santa Monica to see if maybe they would take pity on me and see how they could help. One of the folks there directed me to an iPod repair site because they might be a little less expensive and, when I googled them, I happened across a number of stories of other people who had dropped their iPhones and Apple swapped them for a new one. I was able to talk to a manager and when I told her what I found, she did some checking and sure enough, they could swap it out for a new one!
I mean, it was totally my fault and yet they were going to go that extra mile and help me out! I told them I wrote about things like this and asked if it was OK to write this piece. I worry sometimes that if you give public praise to an employee who may or may not have bent the rules to help you, that you can get them in trouble. But they were happy to hear that I wanted to share this story with other folks. Now, I wouldn't recommend that you break the screen on your iPhone to test this story, but it had a very happy ending for me!
When I started to write this piece before I had the Apple experience, I was writing to ask the question, should someone who feels that they are an evangelist for a company expect to be treated differently? Maybe I was wrong for feeling like that for all I give to Nokia, I couldn't get some simple help back. But then I had the Apple experience and it made me realize that Nokia should take care of their customers the same way.
The interesting this is that, if you take away the coolness of the touch screen, I really like the Nokia phone better. So, what makes the Nokia phones so uninspiring and everything that Apple does so cool??? It’s not the traditional features & benefits, because Nokia wins this battle for me.
But now I’m stuck with a quandary. Do I continue to evangelize for a phone that I really love, my Nokia 9500, even though they haven’t been all that helpful once I started to have a problem. Or, do I become an evangelist for a phone I think is cool, but not as good for how I use it, because they gave me a really great experience? And think of how much more of an evangelist I’d be if the product that I really love gave me the best experience.
If anyone from Apple reads this, well, hats off to you and thanks for a great experience! And if anyone from Nokia reads this, well, make me an evangelist again! I love your product, help me love the company too!
PS -- I would suggest to Apple that in their next generation iPhone, they do something to make it less slippery. Sure, it looks great, but every single person I spoke to has had a problem with it slipping out of their hands!
Great to hear Apple hooked you up. I have an iPhone and it is slippery. Based on your experience, I'll probably buy one of those "bumper" cases that wrap around the side and back.
Posted by: Kevin Dugan | September 04, 2007 at 03:28 PM