Prodigal customer service from Apple

Tired of wires culttering up our otherwise pristine desk, we ordered a wireless Mighty Mouse from Apple’s online store a couple of weeks ago to pair to our iMac. When it arrived, as usual with an Apple product, set-up was painless: it was paired and up and running within minutes.

But there was a problem.

Something in the internals wasn’t quite right. The cursor started dancing around the screen as if it were possessed.

Damnation. A faulty mouse in our house.

This is where the convenence of online shopping turns into hassle: when you have to return a defective purchase. Indeed, because it’s such a relatively small ticket item, we very nearly didn’t bother. The endless waiting on the phone, navigating the automated call system, praying to find a human being to talk to, explaining what the problem was, convincing the customer service rep that it really was faulty when it arrived and not because we dropped it, repacking and returning, claiming the refund: It just all felt like more hassle than it was worth. We’d just pop into the Apple Store the next time we passed, we told ourselves, and cough up for another one.

But then we reconsidered: What the hell, we thought, we’ll give Apple a call and see what happens.

Well, what happened was Prodigal customer service.

It took only about 30 seconds to get through to a real, live customer service representative and once we did, he immediately apologised for our inconveniance, told us they’d ship out a replacement to us straightaway and that there was no need to worry about returning the faulty mouse.

Now, of course, we’re sure it wouldn’t have been quite so simple if this had been our MacBook Air we wanted to return, but still, Apple deserves credit for easy, friendly and, most of all, pragmatic customer service. Top marks Apple.