Service of What a Difference One Person Can Make
September 29th, 2022
Categories: Customer Care, Customer Service, Phones, Technology, Telephone Service
If you’ve become dependent on your smartphone, as I am, should it crash, you panic.
I made the wrong decision when this happened to me, bought a new phone from untrained, irresponsible employees at a reputable company–Verizon Wireless–and was saved by a young man at Apple. He stepped out of the routine–he could have palmed me off to someone else, making me wait, but he sensed my distress and sprang into action.
As Paul Harvey used to say, and now the rest of the story.
AJ Rosario at the Grand Central Terminal Apple store rescued me last week. I thought that Verizon Wireless had sold me a damaged iPhone 13. He assessed my mood and quickly put an end to the drama.
Verizon staff did not know how to download my apps and programs from the cloud, which was clear after two days, and its staff washed its hands of the lifeless device they had sold me by ignoring me. Fortunately, the Apple store is in the same building. Once I realized I was persona non grata, simply warming a seat, I dashed to the Apple store.
AJ was at the top of the stairs crowded with people, the first employee I saw. He was as kind, understanding and reassuring as he was expert. He whisked me to a table and rolled up his sleeves. Quickly my thousands of contacts appeared in my address book as did my emails and texts and eventually the apps–and my sanity returned too. The new phone came to life in his hands.
As AJ worked on my iPhone I texted a friend from my iPad. I told her that a guardian angel at Apple was helping me. I told AJ what I’d just written. He whispered that he’s known by AJ at work but his name is Angel–“and don’t tell anyone.”
Do you share my anxiety when purchasing new electronic devices because like me you’re at the mercy of people who know their way around them–or maybe they don’t? Have you had exceptional service–good and bad–of late?
Image by Stefan Kuhn from Pixabay
Tags: Apple, iPhone 13, Verizon Wireless
Wow. Like you, once I have gotten familiar with an operating system, I really don’t like to change… But that seems to be the way things go. The only sure thing is… You guessed it… Change! It’s nice to have a knowledgeable and patient person help you… Usually they turn out to be very young as well!
Funny you mention Apple…I recently went to their store on the upper west side, and had a good experience with Reynaldo. Mercifully, he didn’t try and sell me a new phone, but explained what needed to be done. Very helpful and very nice, even when he could tell I was not as tech-savvy as I suspect some other customers were. The guys at my local AT&T store used to be that helpful, but for some reason they no longer help with problems. Company policy? I don’t know…
Hank,
The new phone works pretty much like the old one. What happened for 2 days at Verizon–that sold me the device and said they’d download all my info from the cloud–was that my address book, emails, texts etc remained empty and none of the apps migrated to the new phone either. Then they let me sit in their showroom, ignoring me.
JEANNE, BLESS YOU FOR MENTIONING “ANGEL”. WHO STANDS IN FOR ALL THOSE WHOM WE DAILY MEET WHO ARE WILLING AND READY TO WALK THE EXTRA MILE TO GIVE US HELP.
ASK,
I suspect AT&T and Verizon staff have been told “sell and run.” I, too used to have wonderful help at this Verizon store.
I suspect AT&T and Verizon staff have been told “sell and run.” In the day when people were sold a bad car they would decorate it with lemon images and park it near the showroom. I swear I wanted to make a sandwich board covered with lemons and pace in front of the Verizon store. While thieves and worse are let go in NYC these days my luck I’d land in jail.
TC,
I wrote Tim Cook, Apple CEO, about AJ/Angel. He is extremely young, good at his job, loyal to his employer, i.e. without seeing the phone while walking to the table to work on it he said “there is nothing wrong with it.” [He was right.] In addition, he is intuitive and compassionate.
Linda on Facebook: sure do and we’re not alone.
Large companies seem no longer to give one holy hoot about customer anguish. I try to purchase from the small guy whenever possible. Conditions might change for the better should the public rebel, but I’m not holding my breath
Lucrezia,
One more reason to praise AJ/Angel of Apple to the skies!
Debbie on Facebook: most definitely and the service at Apple (Grand Central) has always been excellent