Disappointing & painful experience with Arab Business Machines (Apple Partner)
[LEFT]I am writing this to explain to you the exremely disappointing and painful experience I had with the local Apple representative here in the Middle East (Dubai, UAE).
THE REASONS BEHIND THIS POST IS;
1) I have been following Apple and its evolution as a brand for a very long time and am extremely amazed at the success it has achieved over the years,
2) I am a big fan of the products - design & user friendliness - I don't want to see someting I have spend my money on handled by people (Arab Business Machines - ABM) that are "extremely incompetent" and "highly rude/impolite/disparaging" towards its customers,
3) I was made to look like a 'fool' in front of my friends to whom I always lectured on how good Apple products and services (without even experiencing one!) are,
4) Save Apple brand image in the Middle East and Asia - else Apple will have a tough time when it introduces mass market products lik the iPhone,
5) Do not ignore middle east and Asia (I am saying this because thereis a multi-million expat population in the Middle East who either buy products from here for use in their home countries or influence purchasing decisions in back home). These are really BIG markets and such bad customer services can only kill the brand.
WHERE IT ALL STARTED...
My close friend had a testimony on how BAD and RUDE the the service was at Arab Business Machines. He had an older generation iPod that he bought from Jumbo Electronics (a retailer here). After he reached home and opened the pack he discoverd that the LCD had a hair-line crack. He immediately took it back to the retailer who "could not see the crack"!
The next thing my friend did was to contact Apple over the e-mail(he feared if he took the iPod to anywhere else for a chek the warranty might become void). Upon advise from Apple he(along with me) took the iPod to Arab Business Machines where met Mr. "N" (he deserves to be fired from his job - but I forgive - so let me not name him here! )The first question we recieved upon arriving at their office was...
"Why did you contact Apple directly without contacting them?" (In an extremely rude and interrogating tone). Eventually my friend got the iPod replaced but totally disappointed with the service. (it is another story that he had to go back to them another 2 or 3 times with hard disk problems on the iPod and he got the replacement with the same unfriendly attitude!)
I have been owning a MacBook since Sep 2006 and recently I started noticing cracks on the palm rest as well as the outer casing. I immediately logged on to the net and found out that it was a manufacturing/design defect and Apple is replacing the parts free of charge.
Now I had the testimony of my friend on my mind and I didn't want to become another "victim" of Arab Business Machine's anti-customer acts. So I decided to mail Apple directly and immediately got a mail back from Apple Europe (guess they are based in Ireland). The gentleman who mailed me personally called me on my mobile and promised me to do the needful immediately.
After this I got a call from our old "friend" Mr. "N" at Arab Business Machines who in the same rude tone he spoke to my friend asked me the BIG question - "Why did you contact Apple directly without contacting them?" (In an
extremely rude and interrogating tone).
I was stunned to hear this. Who is he to ask me such a question - I have bought someting with my hard earned money and here I have a situation to face the "filth". My reply was that I had 2 reasons for not contacting them;
1) I bought the MacBook from Virgin Megastore. An as a customer my relationship is with Virgin and at the time of purchasing Virgin advised me that at any stage should I have a problem with the notebook I can take it to the Virgin Store and they will give me all the support. (I did take it to Virgin sometime back with an overheating problem and they returned the MacBook in the same condition as earlier!)
2) I didn't want a repeat of my friend's experience.
The next thing the "friend" from Arab Business Machines wanted from me was (if they should give me a replacement of the casing and palm rest and check the heating problem on my MacBook) - I need to give them a letter stating that before contacting Apple directly I failed to contact Arab Business Machines.
I plainly said a BIG NO to this...as I mentioned above, my relationship was with Virgin Megastore and not with Arab Business Machines.
Finally the Arab Business Machines asked me to get in touch with one of their authorised service provider - they are not even ready to meet me directly! This service provider returned my MacBook back after about three days in a "half-done" job - the bottom case and the palm rest have been replaced but the top case which cracked along with the bottom case was left untouched. The reason they gave me was that the top case is not included in the recall!
COMING BACK TO THE BIG PICTURE...
Now the situation is, Arab Business Machines might think that I might be one of those "hard customers". Well if they have brains they should be asking themselves why I went and bought the MacBook after my friend's horrible experience with them (and I'm still planning to buy more - very soon I am planning to upgrade to a macBook Pro!)
All I am trying to convey to you (Apple Globally) is that sit down and assess what kind of services your partners across the globe are doing - else it will be too late and all that reputation and brand image you built over the years will be lost.
Its "hard-core" Apple fans like me (who are made to look like fools) who are promoting Apple in the Middle East and not ABM.
Apple Inc. - keep in mind N. America is not the only market where you can sell Apple! There areother big and emerging markets - provided Apple and its partners are ready to protect its consumers' very basic rights.
Hope Apple does something about this unfortunate, pitiful and inappropriate situation.
I am still a fan of Apple(not its partners!) [/LEFT]
Comments
Yes there are a lot of Middle East tourists/ workers/ etc. in Malaysia. If you or your friends, etc. come to Malaysia, I would just say stick to Machines MidValley, Machines KLCC and EpiCentre Pavillion Bukit Bintang when you are looking at Apple stuff in Malaysia. A few of the other resellers here in Malaysia are pretty bad, I say this with minimum personal bias, the stories I have heard are pretty bad, from no service, to taking a deposit and not shipping any stock for a month or more, poor product selection, always no stock, etc. etc.
In Malaysia if you call the toll-free official Apple Support number you get the call centre in Australia, which is at least pretty competent.
Also, try Singapore, kind of the leading hub for Apple South East Asia + India at the moment.
Its "hard-core" Apple fans like me (who are made to look like fools) who are promoting Apple in the Middle East and not ABM.
Apple Inc. - keep in mind N. America is not the only market where you can sell Apple! There areother big and emerging markets - provided Apple and its partners are ready to protect its consumers' very basic rights....
The thing is that Apple is very ready to enter a whole buch of markets, Middle East and Asia being top of the list. The sad thing is that the resellers are sometimes just not up to scratch. The only way Apple can preserve integrity when entering these markets are to have a very strong Apple-sponsored market entry...?
Also, if you are in Malaysia, DO NOT go to anything that says "Apple Centre". This term is no longer allowed to be used by any Apple reseller, but a few still have old signs that say so. If you see "Apple Centre", DO NOT buy stuff from them, they are not supposed to use it. Look only for "Apple Premium Reseller".