Customer Experience: Mac vs. PC

The Customer Experience: Mac vs. PC

My old PC had been making funny grinding noises and taking a long time to load. A real long time.  Like up to half an hour. This was not a good thing.

It’s was ok when my wife was at work, the kids were at school and I was home alone. On those rare occasions the eMac was available. But that didn’t usually happen.  More frequently there were six of us competing for screen time based on who really, really needed to get homework (or real work) done or what was playing on hulu.com.

Alright, I’ll fess up.  This wasn’t a sudden occurrence. It was a situation that had been steadily degrading over the past year.  Kind of like driving a 1982 Subaru into the ground, well after it passes 300,000 miles.  The dealership isn’t going to help out. In fact, few things (short of an act of God or mercy killing) stand to intervene with the inevitable.

It was time to go shopping. Yippee? Not exactly.

The reason this situation got so out of hand is that I didn’t like the range of choices I was facing: buy a relatively inexpensive windows based laptop and face the Vista Demons, or purchase a Macbook for the approximate cost of water-front property in Kauai. Grrr.

On the other hand, I was pretty sure that this would be an interesting experience. So I documented it. And now I get to share it with you.  Come along on the ride, check out the scenery then tell me what you would have done.

First things first: the online experience

There’s a little voice inside my head saying “get the Mac” but I can’t tell if that’s my angel or devil. Is it practical (a better long-term buy, seamless integration, better user experience) or materialistic (it looks so pretty! I’ll be one of the cool kids!)? I should at least perform due diligence and check out apple.com for details, right?

Here I am.  Wow their graphics are impressive. I love the video about the new Macbook.  This thing is a ferrari.  My wife would love it! I’d never get to use it.

Hmmm. How much would it really cost? Let’s head over to the shopping cart, just to see. Starts at $1299. Well, I could get the new lower cost plastic body version for $999 instead. It’s practically the same thing though less rugged and with a 40GB smaller hard drive. Do I need an aluminum shell, or 160GB of space? What else would I need?

An extra 2GB of RAM? Probably worth it for $100. AppleCare maintenance? Definitely. That’s another $250. What am I up to? $1350 on the low end, $1650 on the high end. Whew…I’m not sure about this. Let’s go look at PC’s.

OK, I’m heading over to BestBuy.com now. I know there are better sites to shop on but this is the only big box electronics store near me. I’ll probably want to compare the machines in person at some point to gauge weight, feel and appearance, and it seems that I’ll be best prepared if I go in with product information at the ready.

Hmmm…here’s a ‘laptop discovery tool.” That looks promising. I can sort by price, size, weight, brand,  speed, screen size, rating, storage capacity or memory type. Oh wait…it seems that I could also choose to evaluate based on what I am planning to use the device for: gaming, email, entertainment, travel, business or home.

I can feel my mind numbing. What am I looking for? Focus Kai, focus.  Ok, the tool wants me to compare at least two features. Let’s start with price, I guess.  And…how about brand? I’ll eliminate Gateway, Compaq and HP since I’ve had bad experiences with those machines. I guess I’ll look at the $499 Dell, $599 Toshiba and $649 Sony to start. Might as well add in the $699 Dell too since there is extra room on the comparison chart. Ok, let’s see the results.

Huh.  That’s weird.  It’s showing me price, size, weight, brand,  speed, screen size, rating, storage capacity or memory type for each model.  Well, I guess that’s not weird after all, since that was the input criteria. But what I really want to see is whether they all come with built in wireless, bluetooth and webcams.  And how fast are the cd/dvd drives?

Oh, I see. I have to click on each model individually to get those details.  Doesn’t that kind of defeat the purpose of a comparison tool? Aha…the Dell says that it comes with built in Wi-Fi. Nothing about those other things I want, but it does include a ‘built in digital media reader.’ I wonder what that is? Is that like a fancy description for a usb port, or something?  Let me click and go back a step.

The Toshiba comes with a built in webcam but there’s no mention of Wi-Fi. Sony includes webcam and Wi-Fi but I still don’t see anything about bluetooth. The higher end Dell has a good looking webcam. Should I assume, since it’s more expensive, that it includes everything else I want? Probably not a good idea. This whole ‘comparison’ isn’t what I was hoping for. So I’ll copy the model number from the Dell and see if I can find more somewhere else on the Best Buy site. Oh, wait a second.  I just noticed that this ‘high end’ Dell gets a 4-star review.  That’s the lowest rating of the four models I am looking at.  But it’s the most expensive one that I am considering!  This makes no sense.

Frustration is setting in. Maybe I should just drive down there and look at each one. There’s bound to be more information available in-store.

Next up: store visit #1

Best Buy is ten minutes down the road. I could get there, buy a machine for under $1,000 and be done in an hour, right? I don’t really want to head to the Apple Store yet, since it’s 45 minutes away. There’s a lot more time and money heading in that direction.

Ah, the hallowed hall of blue and yellow. I know just where to go…the aisle filled with model upon model of netbooks, notebooks and desktops.

The first thing I’m noticing is my sense of estrangement. The selection is so wide that while it helps to get my hands (and eyes) on these machines, I don’t really feel as clear about the decision making process as I hoped I would. A salesperson approaches me to ask if I need help but I say no.  Engaging in a dialogue before I’ve figured out what I need seems distracting.

I’m alone now, grateful that it is mid-day and there are few shoppers here. I start comparing models, being careful to avoid the brands I’m not interested in. I soon confirm that every computer in the store comes with Vista bundled in, though some of the tags say “Vista XP Professional downgrade.” I don’t know what that means. Why would I want a downgrade? Doesn’t sound too appealing.

Maybe I’m rushing this. My old PC isn’t that bad, is it? Then again, my wife keeps telling me that I really, really need a computer that works. There’s no easy out.

I resume strolling through the aisles, appreciating the form factor of a couple computers but mostly just trying to compare in my head.  Then it strikes me; it’s easy to compare online because there’s so much objective information available, but I still need the subjective experience of seeing and feeling the machines. Why can’t I have both? I wonder whether there is a way to retrieve my online search results now that I’m here in the store. Maybe that sales guy could point me in the right direction after all. Go figure…there’s no staff around now. Oh, there’s a blue shirt over in the mobile phone section. He should know.

“Brent” (the mobile phone guy whose name is being changed to protect the guilty) says they have no in-store kiosk. Great. I think I’m done here. I’ll just get on with the rest of my day and keep putting off  fate.

(Digression: I went back to Best buy after the fact to get another picture for this blog and guess what?  Walking out I noticed they do have a customer terminal for Bestbuy.com access. I wonder why “Brent” the irreverent sales person didn’t know about this? Oh, I see, maybe he was just too embarrassed to tell me that they do have one, but it’s dead (that blue screen in the picture wasn’t photoshopped). So was the one in the next aisle). I am so out of here.

On the road again:

Now I’m heading to my designer’s house to get new pictures taken for this site.  We’ve collaborated on many projects, including my startup and brand design for a sustainable energy company. She’s a fun techie. It takes a while to do the photo shoot, which is enjoyable, but then the real fun begins.  We go over to the Mac and she starts importing images, cropping, enhancing, etc. Media magic, really. Within minutes I look younger and everything is formatted to my exact specifications. When she pulls out her new MacBook I nearly run out of the house with it.
Store visit #2:

On my way home I look at the clock.  Natick isn’t that far away.  I’ll be there around 7pm and the Apple store is open until 9pm. I’ve never been to it, but I’ve heard many times from my fifteen year old son that he is hell bent on getting a job there. Should be interesting.

The first thing I notice is that everything is laid out intuitively. I mean the physical space in the store here, not the actual computer hardware or operating system. Apple has only a few models so I’ve already narrowed down the selection before I walk in the door. I walk up to a Macbook and start poking around, immediately grateful that everything on it is live (at Best Buy the computers run in demo mode without an internet connection or the ability to launch programs).

The interface prompts me to consider an in-store consultation. I register, and within minutes a bright looking kid comes over and asks if he can help me out. It tuns out (I discover later) that Austin Dill the Mac Specialist is also a film student at NYU, just home for semester break. The guy is geek through and through, and I mean that in a highly complimentary way. I recognize that he really uses this stuff;   the  expertise with which he navigates the applications comes from first-hand experience.

Austin validates some of the things I had already discovered about the model I am looking at, updates me on some of the new OS features and educates me about the integrated nature of the applications.  Like my iPhone, the Macbooks assimilate core functionality across the entire platform. Very user friendly.

We talk for about an hour, which flies by. At the end of it, I’ve made a decision.

At this point, which would you buy?

Buyer’s Remorse:
It started before I even left the store. I upgraded to the aluminum body and 160GB hard drive. I could have done without it, but the machine I chose feels like it is built to last and that’s really important to me. I also purchased AppleCare and an external hard drive which is supposed to perform automatically; just plug it in and there’s absolutely no configuration required. Sounds too good to be true, I know.

You might be thinking that I was regretting the money spent.  Not so.  In fact, the whole affair was remarkable. Pure glee. At checkout I had a couple of boxes which were manageable. Still, it was great that the bag they gave me had shoulder straps. This is a minor investment on Apple’s part, but shows that they really understand the entire customer experience. I knew that  it would be much easier to carry my purchases through the mall now, but before I even left the register Austin asked me if I would like to complete my printer rebate on line from one of their machines.

“Seriously? I asked. I figured I would have to go home, cut out the UPC from the box, make copies and mail them.  Nope.  Apple has it all figured out.  I walked up to one of the live Macbooks, typed in the url listed on the receipt, input the code number and my contact information then clicked submit. A confirmation was immediately mailed to my inbox.  That’s it…done. Having worked in retail (for 3Com) I know that manufacturers base their rebates on the expected redemption rate. What sounds like a great deal in the store ($100 off!) doesn’t really matter if you never send in the form. So I appreciate the transparency here.

You know, the PC guys would do well to learn that customer satisfaction is about the entire customer experience, not just the computer’s functionality and quality of tech support.

But here’s where it gets even better. I went home and hooked everything up. It worked perfectly. No hitches, glitches or ghosts in the machine. Even the external storage solution worked as Austin said it would because of Mac’s ingenious Time Machine application. I could hardly sleep I was so happy.  I wanted to tell everyone about my purchase, and about the qualitative differences in the comparison between considering a PC and buying a Mac.

Then they really got me.

First thing in the morning I had an email from Apple. The subject? “We hope you enjoyed your Personal Shopping visit.”

I could really pick at straws and say it might have been even better if the email was personalized with the name of my sales person, but hey…I get the point. They want my feedback.  And I am glad to share it.  After all, positive reinforcement is a great way to build relationships!