Impact of Customer Service on Nexus 4 overall sales figures

[KenDavidson]

One of the things that Apple has mastered is their customer service delivery through their Apple Store outlets and their Genius Bar. This past week my wifes iPhone 4S developed an issue and we set an appointment online at the local Apple Store. We arrived about 5 minutes early and were greeted and signed in. The store was packed full of other customers making purchases, browsing and waiting on support. At the time of our scheduled appointment we were introduced to the tech who looked at the phone and brought up the purchase information. He immediately told us our best option was to replace the phone since our warranty was expiring in 3 days. He provided us with a new phone and an extened warranty for an additional 90 days. Within 15 minutes of walking into the store we left with a new phone that was working and downloading information from Apples Cloud Server and no money out of pocket. Overall a great customer experience and one that I have grown used to when needing support on any of my Apple products.

I am by no means a fanboy of Apple and have my fair amount of dislikes of some of Apples business model. But with my intent to purchase the Nexus 4 the moment it becomes available in the Play Store it got me to wondering. Thought this may be a good topic of debate and exploration here in the forums.

1. Do you feel that the "online" sales venue (with the exception of the T-Mobile model) versus the brick and mortor support offering will have a negative impact in sales of the N4 versus the iPhone?

For me personally this will not impact my decision to purchse the N4 and sell my iPhone 4 on ebay, already listed btw. But for people like my mom and brother they like the support and customer service they receive and have available and are not willing to leave that.​

Additioanlly I am very hopeful that this product release goes smoothly and provides a boost of Google's stock price to hit $700 per common share or above and to sustain that price unlike Apple's that has continued to drop and is now trading at under $100 less per share than Google.

I guess we will all find out in a few hours once this goes live. - holdingbreath.jpg

 

[DirkBelig]

If you want/need hands-on, in-person support, buy it through a B&M store meaning, in this case, T-Mobile. You'll pay more, but you'll be able to go in and get live human support. As I often say, while it's great to be able to save money buying online, there's something to be said for being able to show up and be in a position to leap over a counter and strangle someone when they're not being helpful.

I'm hoping Google learned their lesson with the Nexus 7 launch debacle. I received a totally screwed up unit that shouldn't have even made it out of the ASUS plant and it took two calls over a week and at least 90 minutes on hold and talking to hapless CSRs to get things resolved. I really regretted ordering online, especially when people were able to buy in B&M stores days before mine was delivered and could take them back if there were problems. Of course, if the darn unit wasn't defective in the first place, I would've had a different experience. We'll see soon enough, won't we?