Apple Store delivery/collecting
You might think delivery mail in the UK is the best...well apparently not.
Let me explain why I think this way using a recent experience that I've had when buying a product from Apple Store UK.
It all started when I decided I would go for the new iPhone 5 with an extended Care Protection Plan.
The very first problem was the actual payment, which was pending because I needed an approval from the bank.
Call it extra precaution or not, but I think it was an unsolicited delay to my request.
Since this happened on a Saturday, I had to call the bank first thing in the morning of Monday, explaining the situation and ask for an approval. 15 minutes for this, done.
Standard Delivery was the chosen delivery method, thinking it would not take long.
And indeed it didn't, but the delivery guy came to my door in the morning, when obviously I was in the office.
When I came back from the office late in the afternoon, I found one leaflet in the mailbox having written down only my name, nothing else. So I had to call UK Mail (the chosen delivery company for this) to ask for the consignment number for my parcel.
The dialled number from UK mail was a 0845xx number, which charged me more than 5 GBP.
I explained in detail what happened and asked for a delivery late in the evening if possible.
What happened in the following days, is that on Wednesday the delivery guy came at 10:05am then on Tuesday at 7:10pm.
Both times I was not at home, so I had to call them back again to cancel for Friday and to go collect the parcel from depot myself.
So we skipped another delivery day and went on Saturday morning, on a rainy day, spending another 10 GBP for the travel to get to the depot which was located somewhere outside the city I live in.
I finally took the parcel.
After using the product for another 4 days I got disappointed again, since I realised the well desired product was offering no value for the money I spent. So finally I decided to return the product in the allowed 14 days timeframe for a full refund.
This time UPS was sent to me to collect the parcel (quite interesting). I thought Apple was taking more care in collecting rather than delivering, which says a lot about the way they approach this.
Today the UPS guy came to collect the package, but believe me or not, he came without proper documents, he was informed through the system that he had to collect something from the area he was delivering that moment.
An unfortunate experience from beginning to end.
Lessons I've learned:
1. PAY ATTENTION TO BOTH PAYMENT METHOD AND DELIVERY COMPANY (IF POSSIBLE).
2. TRY TO IDENTIFY THE COMPANY RESPONSIBLE FOR DELIVERY/COLLECTING BEFOREHAND
3. NEVER USE STANDARD DELIVERY (TIME DELIVERY INSTEAD OR ANY TRACKED DELIVERY)
4. NEVER APPROVE COLLECTING WITHOUT PROPER DOCUMENTS IN PLACE
P.S. However the Apple Customer Care experience was good overall, and that gave me a lot of confidence in the future. One of the guys from delivery called me on mobile to help me solve this in the right way, he also escalated and responded to all my requests. Customer Care was very responsive and polite as well.
I would definitely be more careful next time when I do online purchasing from any store in the UK.
A LATE UPDATE (June 2013): I got a FULL REFUND from Apple in less than 2 weeks, I am more than satisfied about the experience I had with Customer Support.
Let me explain why I think this way using a recent experience that I've had when buying a product from Apple Store UK.
It all started when I decided I would go for the new iPhone 5 with an extended Care Protection Plan.
The very first problem was the actual payment, which was pending because I needed an approval from the bank.
Call it extra precaution or not, but I think it was an unsolicited delay to my request.
Since this happened on a Saturday, I had to call the bank first thing in the morning of Monday, explaining the situation and ask for an approval. 15 minutes for this, done.
Standard Delivery was the chosen delivery method, thinking it would not take long.
And indeed it didn't, but the delivery guy came to my door in the morning, when obviously I was in the office.
When I came back from the office late in the afternoon, I found one leaflet in the mailbox having written down only my name, nothing else. So I had to call UK Mail (the chosen delivery company for this) to ask for the consignment number for my parcel.
The dialled number from UK mail was a 0845xx number, which charged me more than 5 GBP.
I explained in detail what happened and asked for a delivery late in the evening if possible.
What happened in the following days, is that on Wednesday the delivery guy came at 10:05am then on Tuesday at 7:10pm.
Both times I was not at home, so I had to call them back again to cancel for Friday and to go collect the parcel from depot myself.
So we skipped another delivery day and went on Saturday morning, on a rainy day, spending another 10 GBP for the travel to get to the depot which was located somewhere outside the city I live in.
I finally took the parcel.
After using the product for another 4 days I got disappointed again, since I realised the well desired product was offering no value for the money I spent. So finally I decided to return the product in the allowed 14 days timeframe for a full refund.
This time UPS was sent to me to collect the parcel (quite interesting). I thought Apple was taking more care in collecting rather than delivering, which says a lot about the way they approach this.
Today the UPS guy came to collect the package, but believe me or not, he came without proper documents, he was informed through the system that he had to collect something from the area he was delivering that moment.
An unfortunate experience from beginning to end.
Lessons I've learned:
1. PAY ATTENTION TO BOTH PAYMENT METHOD AND DELIVERY COMPANY (IF POSSIBLE).
2. TRY TO IDENTIFY THE COMPANY RESPONSIBLE FOR DELIVERY/COLLECTING BEFOREHAND
3. NEVER USE STANDARD DELIVERY (TIME DELIVERY INSTEAD OR ANY TRACKED DELIVERY)
4. NEVER APPROVE COLLECTING WITHOUT PROPER DOCUMENTS IN PLACE
P.S. However the Apple Customer Care experience was good overall, and that gave me a lot of confidence in the future. One of the guys from delivery called me on mobile to help me solve this in the right way, he also escalated and responded to all my requests. Customer Care was very responsive and polite as well.
I would definitely be more careful next time when I do online purchasing from any store in the UK.
A LATE UPDATE (June 2013): I got a FULL REFUND from Apple in less than 2 weeks, I am more than satisfied about the experience I had with Customer Support.
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