Blown iPod battery and low expectations

The Apple Store, from my house in Hendersonville, Tennessee, is only 15 miles away or so, but the traffic driving into Green Hills Shopping Center is a vein-popper. I even avoid going to Wild Oats when I need whole food supplies because of the traffic involved.

I’m going on vacation next week, to St. George Island, in the Gulf of Mexico. Gotta have my iPod. But I don’t treat electronic equipment as well as I should. So, a few months ago, when I was charging the old Nano, instead of heeding the warning about DO NOT UNPLUG WHILE CHARGING, I unplugged it. After all, what could possibly go wrong?

Well, I fried the battery. I would charge it up and it would last about 10 minutes before going dark, as they say in “shew bidniss.” What a schmuck. Thank you.

Ok. So I went to Green Hills and the iPod Store to see what they could do. They weren’t too busy when my son Max and I walked in, and a friendly face greeted me immediately. “What can I do for you?”

I explained about the impotent battery but did not (I’m so sneaky) tell her the burn-out was may fault. “Can I get the battery replaced,” I asked. Turns out that they don’t replace the battery. they just give you another Nano.

She looked up my account on her Pro. Lo and behold, my warranty ran out just 3 days ago. That’s right. I bought it on July 14, 2006. It is now July 17, 2007. “Ohhh, tooo baaad,” she said. That’s not what I was thinking, but I let it slide as I hung my head in consternation. She also informed that I couldn’t just walk in and get the thing fixed. i had to have an appointment.

She checked the schedule and I was delighted that they had an opening in just three hours. I didn’t want to wait, but I sure as hell didn’t want to drive back to Green Hills, so I took the appointment and Max and I left. There’s a Cheesecake Factory restaurant there so we went there, ate, talked, paid, and left for the bookstore. I could spend days in a good bookstore so it was no problem. Before we knew it our time had come to leave for the Apple Store.

My appointment was for 3:15 and we got back at about 3:10, just like the girl suggested. I looked at the monitors above the Genius Desk and there were the scheduled appoinments right before my eyes. This was revalutionary to me. What a concept. Why can’t restaurants do the samt thing? As a matter of fact, why can’t restaurants serve decent food? But that’s another blog.

I was third on the list, which went real quick because numbers 1 and 2 were no longer present. One of the Geniuses called my name and I was there in a flash.

He typed my name and the Nano serial number into his Pro and got all the info needed. He informed me, as the girl had done earlier, that my warranty had just run out. I hung my head again. I do that a lot when I screw up.

He kept typing. A few minutes later he asked me if I needed the engraving which I had on the back of my original Nano. Well, no, not really. I wanted to pay my money (the girl said $59 to replace) and get out of there. Matt, my Genius, went to the storage cabinet to get my replacemement. He came back empty handed and kept typing. He then informed me that they were out of Nanos and that they would have them in just a couple of days. Did I have the same home phone number? He’d call when they came in.

Yeah, I got the same number but I really don’t want to come out there again. He then informed me that he helped me out by just “pushing” the order through, no charge. That’s NO CHARGE. Hell yeah, I’ll come back to pick it up.

That’s what I call sevice above and beyond. Ok, my warranty had run out by three days, and he could have charged me, and I would have had to pay it. But he did me a favor I didn’t even ask for. Instead of being some dunder-headed clerk just doing the scripted dance, he understood how I felt and took care of me. What a guy. What a store. What a company.

Thanks, Matt. You da man. I appreciate what you did for me more than you know. And, I’ll be be back, you can bet on that.

By the way, my son Max has recently become a “switcher” after his Vaio went haywire. He witnessed what went down there and I know it helped make him feel even better about going Apple…better than he already felt. He LOVES his MacBook. Thanks again, Matt.