Fitness Business Lesson From Apples Customer Service

So last Wednesday I was traveling to Louisville for a Mastermind meeting with Pat, Nick and Jim.  I had my laptop with me, and it’s a MacBook Pro.  I had made the switch from PC to Mac a couple of years ago, and was so glad I did.  When I got off the plane, Pat’s wife Holly was there to pick me up.  We were going to pick up Tyler from school and then shoot some video workouts at Pat and Holly’s house.

Holly has an adapter that allows you to plug in your laptop to the cigarette lighter in the car.  Well when I plugged my laptop in and turned it on, the screen remained black.  Not good.  When we got to Pat and Holly’s house, we tried all sorts of things – resets and taking the battery out, and nothing worked.  Looks like I had a major problem with my computer.

So I went through 3 days in Louisville with no computer, which really sucks because that’s my business and it was frustrating not to be able to communicate with my customers and answer emails.  Plus Pat kept making fun of me during the meeting for my computer being broken.

When I got back to Dallas, I took my laptop to an authorized Mac repair shop and they diagnosed the problem.  I needed a new logic board, which was going to set me back over $1,200.  That’s pennies if your name is Jim Labadie, but alas, mine isn’t.

I decided that it would make more sense just to buy a new computer rather than spend over $1,200 getting mine fixed, so I got my laptop back and headed to the Apple store.  Oh, the other thing I didn’t mention was that my computer is outside of the warranty, so I was going to have to pay for the entire thing.  So it looked like my family was going to get homemade gifts instead of nice store bought gifts this Christmas.

I let the people at the Genius Bar at the Apple store look at my computer just to confirm the diagnosis that it needed a new logic board.  Yep, that’s what it needed all right.  And their cost was about $200 more than the repair place.   Then, all of the sudden my luck changed.  The tech guy was typing a bunch of stuff on the computer, confirmed I was outside of the warranty, but out of the clear blue sky said they would cover the cost of the repair this one time.  I was absolutely blown away.  I was all set to spend between $1600-$2000 on a new computer.

This was on Monday.  They said they would have to send my computer away to get it repaired and that it would take 5-7 business days.  That was a bummer because I was leaving the following Sunday to go home for the holidays and I really wanted to be able to take my laptop home with me.  3 days later, I get a call from Apple and my computer is ready to be picked up.

When I got to the Apple store, I learned that not only did they replace the logic board, but they also replaced the followed: Top Case, Keyboard, Display Housing, RAM Door, Optical SuperDrive, Display Bezel, and Video Display Panel.  It was like I was getting a brand new computer for free!

Apple now has me as a customer for life.  Their unexpected generosity of repairing my computer for free and superior customer service may have cost them some money upfront.  But they will be rewarded for it with future purchases from me, their new lifelong customer.  And how else are they being rewarded for it?  Well, this blog post will be read by a few thousand people and I’ve bragged about them on Facebook.  This kind of positive feedback can spread virally very quickly.  Just realize that this is the type of outstanding customer service we should all be striving for in our fitness business.  Make your customers your #1 priority.  Treat them like family members.  And watch your fitness business grow. Oh yeah, and one more thing. – the Colby family gets nicer Christmas gifts because of Apple. : )

~ Scott Colby
www.TheAbsExpert.com
www.AbsUncrunched.com

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