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The battery in my iPhone is suddenly on the fritz -- I charged it fully last night, only to to be confronted by low power warnings when I turned it on this morning -- and when I called Apple to see about getting it fixed, things eventually went smoothly.
They're going to overnight a loaner phone to me, and it won't cost me a cent to ship my phone back to them, so that's all well and good.
Except they initially tried to charge me $30 for the loaner phone.
"But I've only had the thing since late August," I told the technician. "That's less than two months. It's still under the original warranty, plus I paid for extended AppleCare." She explained that the loaner wasn't covered under AppleCare, but after another minute or two of whining and wheedling from me, she waived the fee.
So what am I complaining about? Simply this: If they're truly justified in charging that fee, they shouldn't waive it. And if they aren't, they shouldn't make that initial attempt to charge it.
I can't help thinking that if I were a meeker individual, a fragile flower who avoids confrontation at all costs, I'd be thirty bucks poorer right now, and that seems unfair.
This charge 'em-unless-they-squawk approach leaves everyone feeling dissatisfied. I'm glad the fee got waived, but I feel lingering resentment that they even tried to charge me in the first place. And if I'd not squawked and had paid the fee, I'd be even more upset.
Either way, the customer is left with a sour taste in his mouth, and I'm guessing that, more often than not, the Apple reps give in, so the company rarely ends up with its thirty pieces of silver.
So why erect these hoops up for customers to jump through?
I feel the same way about mail-in rebates. You just know that the companies who offer them are counting on the fact that many consumers will never get around to mailing in the required forms. But again, the consumer's left feeling sour, and I can't see how that serves the company in the long run, even considering the saved money on the unclaimed rebate.
It's such an obvious, slimy gambit, and the companies who resort to it should be ashamed of themselves. Much more is gained, I'm convinced, in consumer goodwill and customer satisfaction to just offer an instant rebate and, if that's not viable, don't dangle it before the consumer's nose. I end up resenting the companies that play those games, and surely it's bad business practice to engage in behavior that incurs these little resentments.