Kudos to AppleCare Customer Service

The trackpad clicker on my beloved 2-year old PowerBook 2400c had been going bad for the past year. In addition, its screen had started to flicker a bit when the battery got low. With 3 months left on AppleCare, I decided it was time to prepare for warranty afterlife and get the annoying but not fatal problems fixed.

Last Wednesday I called AppleCare and after some 4 to 5 minutes on hold, I was speaking to a very courteous gentleman. I described the problems. He asked a few relevant questions off his computer screen and put me on hold for 2 minutes. When he came back on he asked if my address was still correct, said he'd be sending a box by next day AirBorne Express and gave me my case and dispatch numbers. All total it took about 15 minutes or so. Maybe I got lucky, given comments I've been reading lately on various list server posts.

The PowerBook coffin came the next (Friday) afternoon. I was surprised to find that the airbill was made out to Apple Direct Service in Houston, TX, instead of Austin, TX, where it went in October 1998 and languished for over 2 months waiting to get a new I/O power supply board. I backed up the hard drive and erased sensitive data from it over the weekend and sent it by AirBorne Express on Monday afternoon.

Yesterday morning it was back. My PowerBook 2400c has a brand new trackpad and clicker assembly and the screen doesn't flicker when the battery gets low. There's no paperwork describing what they did, just a proof of repair sheet. Apple Direct Service did a fine job very quickly. Mine was a total quality experience, the kind that deserves the ZDNet Star Award that Apple recently received for technical support.