Apple has a Customer for Life

My son received an iPod Touch for Christmas.  I must admit he's an only child and is a little spoiled but that's another story.  Anyway, on our way to Fry's Electronics to get a case and a screen protector he accidentally dropped his brand new really expensive iPod Touch in the Fry's parking lot.  Quite honestly I wasn't too worried since I've dropped my old iPhone many times and never received a scratch.  Unfortunately for him...and I guess for me...he didn't have the same rosy experience.  The bottom right of the screen was cracked and totally messed up.  You could feel the shards of glass on the screen and probably wouldn't be able to use it anymore for fear of cutting your finger.  Oh my goodness (I said something a little harsher than that :-)!!!  What to do now?  I've heard how expensive it was to replace the screen from friends who cracked the screen of their iPhone and it was pretty prohibitive---pretty much the cost of a new iPhone.  My son took it pretty well.  He basically said he'll make it work.  I would have started to cry, curl up in a corner and start to mutter to myself the mantra that everyone that has done something dumb does -- "how could I be so stupid".

The next day, I decided that we would go to the Apple Store to see how much it would cost to fix.  I was hoping it would be something like $100 and I knew my son had roughly $50 saved up from lots of christmas' and birthdays and we would chalk it up to a really expensive lesson.  We walked in and asked the first sales associate what we should do and he looked a little stunned with the "wow you're screwed look" on his face and then proceeded to tell us we needed to set-up a genius appointment which we did.   I wasn't too hopeful after this.  When our name was called we spoke to Charlie and my son told him what had happened.  Charlie asked if it was a Christmas present and my son said it was.  Charlie then said that since it was a present and that we had just got it he would simply swap it out for a new one.

What?

He typed something into the computer and then printed out the forms.  We signed some papers and walked away with a brand new iPod Touch.  My son was so stunned he kept asking me what was I doing with that new iPod Touch.  I told him that the guy just replaced his cracked one with a brand new one and we didn't have to pay anything.  He couldn't quite grasp what had just happened.

Wow, that's customer service.  I didn't even buy it at the Apple store.  Charlie the Apple Store Genius didn't even care or ask.

We were so amazed that after we walked out of the store my son and I agreed we were Apple customers for life.  For the $50 bucks or what ever it would cost Apple to replace the screen they turned us into giddy fanboys.  That was kind of a tough reality to admit for this Microsoft employee but Apple deserved it.