Stop Core

This in from a reader:

The semi-colon key on my one year old MacBook Pro popped off yesterday. I took it into Core to see if I could get it fixed. Despite the fact that the broken part is a 50c clip, they wanted to replace the entire keyboard at a cost of R2,500. I took out my pocket knife and fixed it myself while arguing with the service agent. The clip is still broken, so the key does not sit straight, but at least it works again.

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While I have been critical of Core in the past, I was pleasantly surprised by the customer service at the iStore in Waterfront recently. As regular reader of this site might know, despite all of Apple’s issues in SA, I am still a major fan of the iPhone. I honestly believe it is one of the best gadgets I have ever spent my money on, and I have never had any buyer’s remorse.

Needless to say, I was very excited to get my hands on the iPhone 3GS when it was announced by Vodacom. Before this I went into Vodashop’s several times a week to enquire about it, put my names on many reservation lists for the phone all in a bid to get one as soon as they land here. Needless to say, on launch day not a single Vodashop in the Western Cape could help me, all with their own pathetic excuse.

I decided to phone iStore, and surely enough they had only 5 available, and yes, my reserved name was on one of them. And I have to say, the service by Justin and Darren was excellent – I told them I wanted a 32gig model, and I gave them my contract details over the phone. Now I should point out that I did not want a iPhone specific contract – I wanted to stay on a high end Top-Up contract. (When I told Cellucity this, they said no.) Through the day I got updates and confirmations that everything was in order. That night at 19:00 I drove over to Waterfront to go get my new toy. I walked into the shop, signed the final documents, swiped my card and walked out with a new iPhone 3GS.

Now I am pretty sure international readers will think nothing of this, but for South Africans this level of service is unheard of. Lets just say that if Core continues on this path, I might just give them a second chance.

You can read my initial impressions of the iPhone 3GS here.

PS: To this day, not one of the Vodacom branches I booked a 3GS with has phoned me.

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Via Email:

I have recently realised that my OS X install disks were missing. (I needed them to run the Apple Hardware Test) So, I phoned Core, got shunted from person to person and eventually spoke to some mumbling guy who refused to repeat his name.

I was told I would have to purchase OS X for the full price. (~R1300)

This surprised me as all over the internet are reports of people having their missing OS X dvds replaced for under $20 or for free.

Another example of Core only in it for the money.

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This is based on an email we got to info@stopcore.co.za

Hi, not happy with Apple service in general. Orders take far too long, I wanted Aperture and after 3 months still not available thru Apple Waterfront store. Also with malfunction of mouse they wanted to send it back to factory, wanted it replaced since it was new, I have bought 2 IPods 160 Gig there, 2 Mac Book Airs and two big pc’s so feel I am entitled to some kind of service, but alas….

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Originally from: http://za.charlesleaver.com/2009/06/bad-apples/

I have a Macbook Pro 15” 2.2GHz which was purchased in 2007. I purchased AppleCare with it locally as the company I work for has an arrangement which allows them to purchase AppleCare locally. Doing a warranty check against my serial number on the Apple website confirmed that the warranty expires in 2010. The machine started giving me graphics related issues, but they weren’t consistent so I didn’t take it in for a few days while I tried to find out what the problem was, if any. I ended up running Apple diagnostics and unfortunately my suspicions were confirmed as I was told that I do indeed have a graphics card issue. I then found out that this is a common problem with Macbook Pros that have NVIDIA graphics cards like my one and that Apple extend the standard one year warranty to two years for this fault. Given all of that I felt that it was safe to assume that this was a fairly common problem that Core must surely see pretty frequently, and that it couldn’t be too hard to diagnose seeing as even I was able to diagnose it, and that given how common the problem was, Core would be silly to not keep stock of the replacement parts.

I was going to take the machine to the Core technical center in Jet Park, so I went to the Core website to find the address. Mmm, confusing. The website still said that Core were in Kramerview. Confused and not wanting to go all the way to a location in Jet Park that I had yet to confirm the address of, I tried phoning them. Not ONE of the numbers on their contact page worked!!!!! I asked a friend who used to work for Core if she could find out for sure whether I was able to take the machine in to an iStore, and she said I could, so I took it to Clearwater and booked it in all officially etc. A few days later I phoned all the numbers I could find for the technical center to see how far they were to solving my problem, and was told that the machine wasn’t even booked in yet, despite the iStore having said that they have a daily courier service between all iStores and the technical center. I then began many frustrating days of trying to get through to Core and simply not succeeding. I was given an email address for a supposed “Nuno” who I wrote an email to, only to have it bounce as he doesn’t really exist. I had a security guard answer a phone after ten minutes on hold only to tell me that I must phone back in ten minutes because nobody was there and that he was just a security guard and I must not get cross with him. Not there?? In the middle of the day?

I’m sure you can appreciate how I was feeling about Core (and Apple in general) at this stage. Pretty damn furious. And that aside, if you have a Mac or a job then you will appreciate either how much I was hating not having a Mac, or how much my work was being negatively affected by not having a proper machine to work on.

I finally managed to get hold of Core and was told me that a quote had been sent to the iStore many days ago. Thanks iStore, don’t bother phoning me or anything. I’m sure my sensors will just figure this one out for themselves. I told them that being sent a quote was crap and that they didn’t need a proof of purchase when they were being told quite clearly by Apples own website that the machine is under warranty until 2010. I was told they would let the technician know. I wasn’t told that this was code for “thanks a lot sir now you can begin another four week wait during which you have no idea what’s happening as you can’t get hold of us.”. But that’s what happened.

Tick, tock.

When you reach this point you become stuck as to what, if anything, you can do about it. I thought about Hello Peter‘ing them but decided that this wasn’t going to make any difference with a company that clearly gives rocks for whether they have unhappy clients or are providing an even vaguely decent service. Besides, enough people had already complained there, and they were mostly all still unhappy. Stuck as to what my plan was, I dreamed up different ways for them to die, and made some of these public (on every social network that I’m on thanks to ping.fm).

And what an excellent plan that was, as I was immediately given the attention of the first of two of the only one decent people to work at Core. In an email I told him: “I don’t have the energy or time to baby such a large collection of incompetent people, so who knows how long this is going to take if you or somebody else there isn’t able to help. As much as I love my Mac, and you must understand… I really really love it, this kind of situation is going to play a large part in deciding whether or not I spend another R30 000 in a few years when it’s time for my next machine. It’s _really_ bad service!!!!”. This was only sent to him at around midday, and yet that very same day he had managed to track down on their side what the story was, make a decision on whether they could help me or not, and what help they’d give me, get the second decent person who works there to fix the thing and have him phone me to find out whether I wanted a certain partition on that machine and finally to have him reinstall Leopard on my machine. Very impressive! My problem was immediately solved. It took another three or four days for the machine to return to the iStore, but I was happy to be able to fetch it on Friday after work, despite the time being 20h00… yes, 8 o’clock in the evening.

After all of that I hadn’t wanted to spend any more of my life wasting time with Core, as I just did by writing this post, but if it’s going to help make up the mind of a potential purchaser of a Mac who doesn’t really have R30 000 to spend on a laptop but has been told really good things about Macs, then I guess it wasn’t that much of a waste of time.

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So things are getting slightly ridiculous. RJ Van Spaandonk, after his meltdown on Twitter on Tuesday came back this weekend in a column in “The Weekender”, the transcript of which you can find here. I need to say that this is the LAST time we will mention RJ in this blog as frankly we’re not going to get called out by his taunts and come across like the acrimonious nut jobs that we’ve been painted as. You need to ask yourself an important question, why would we feel the need to be vindictive and to grind an axe? Frankly all we want is some interaction with Core.

RJ goes on to explain how he was ripped apart online and recommends businesses shouldn’t interact with their customers online as they will just be malicious without any recourse. As an example, RJ talks about how most of his comments were taken out of context as only half of his purposefully sarcastic comments were shown as an example rather than the entire conversation. The simple fact of the matter is that we at Stopcore cannot show you the entire conversation and this is purely because we’ve been blocked from seeing his Twitter stream. Here’s the thing, this is not a way to engage with your customers. Honesty and openness will go much further than your taunts RJ.

I’m sorry, but the simple truth is when someone goes as far as to create a blog with the terms “stop” and your company name, you’ve probably upset a large amount of people. What this means is that engaging with them in a sarcastic manner (as smart and paradigm changing as you think it is) is not smart as you’re dealing with people who don’t find that funny. RJ talks about how business should not interact with their customers online as “I learned to my detriment that tyrants lurk around, trying to exploit your every mishap, and Twitter has rapidly become, like unmoderated blogs before it, the preserve of anonymous agitators trying to look clever at the expense of others.” This is absolutely rubbish. If you look at the likes of Dell, that have interacted online with their customers and created brand loyal customers. If I’ve managed to learn anything about people that complain online, all they need is honest interaction to change their tune. The thing you’ve misunderstood RJ, is that us “vindictive agitators” are actually terribly fickle and all we want is some honest, humble interaction rather than what you’ve described as “my brilliance”. I mean who even writes about themselves with terms like that?

Were you to interact with us in the same way you romance the traditional media, you’ll find we have the potential to be your biggest supporters and to grow your business even further.

The comment about how Apple is only 12.5% more expensive than in the US is illogical as well. Using the example of forward cover being set at nine rand when the actual exchange rate is just under 8 still does not add up. The amount (for a 15-Inch MBP 2.5Ghz at the R9.01 exchange) comes to R15291 for the unit (this is retail pricing not wholesale that Core pays) and even at ten rand to the dollar the amount comes to R17000. Now if you do the math and divide R20999 by R17000 you get a twenty percent markup. Now maybe since we’re a bunch of “vindictive” bloggers we’re obviously useless at maths but the simple fact is 12,5% and 20% are not equal. From my inquiries with importers Forward Cover it’s only worth getting if you’re getting paid over 6-months later as in general, this is the only length of time where the exchange rate will fluctuate dramatically. I’ve also been told that forward cover adds around 7% on to the cost so this makes me wonder where RJ gets his nine rand to the dollar figure. While this seven percent does technically add up to our twenty percent markup this is purely convenient (and incorrect) maths. Even if it were correct maths there would be two issues to consider here. The first issue is why should we as the consumer have to cover your long stock holding times (I mentioned it only makes sense to take forward cover for Core as their expensive products sit on their shelves for months) and secondly this amount makes sense on the retail, not wholesale price that Core gets their products at. When you take a lower wholesale price the cost is lower thus the Forward Cover percentage markup is on a lower amount meaning that there should be a less than 20% markup. It also means there is a lower VAT amount paid. The simple fact is, if Forward Cover is causing you such a hassle surely you’ve considered negotiating with the banks to lower the rate based on the amounts of money you bring in? If you want some help, I know people that import products and sell them at a lower rate than their competitors and still manage to live very comfortably. I say this in the most honest and not sarcastic tone possible if anyone has possibly made that mistake in confusing my tone.

The simple (and final) word on this is as such: stop with your and I quote “sarcasm” RJ, it’s not particularly helping endear yourself to anyone and more importantly it seems to have permeated your entire organisation. You’ve created a company that has made people grateful for being ripped off and having constantly bad service. The sad thing is you’re sitting on the biggest PR win in the entire country if only you engage us honestly. The thousands of people coming to this site and other blogs and forums are your customers and could be the best brand ambassadors you’ll ever have. Your sudden need to defend yourself shows only one thing: we are getting under your skin. The simplest and most elegant comment I’ve heard on your latest outburst is this: re: RJ – As they say, “a poor workman always blames his tool” and that is the final comment we will have in this frankly childish war of words.

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Just to prove that we are not a bunch of annoying bloggers we’d like to take a moment to point out something good that Core did this week.

You’ll remember a few days ago that we broke the news of the new Core pricing and commented that it was somewhat exorbitant. Now the next time we checked the prices have come down. While the drop is not mind boggling it certainly is a step in the right direction. For example the 2.53 Ghz 15-inch model was R22999 a week ago while this week the price has gone down by two thousand rand to R20999. Now these decreases in price are more pronounced higher up in the Macbook Pro range but the decrease is anywhere between R1000 and about R2500.

This makes the range of Apple products a lot more affordable and frankly more accessible. It’s still expensive, but a step in the right direction. Ultimately it does not solve the service and attitude issues but we’re happy anyway.

Good work Core

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First let us be clear on the issues:

There are two that the Mac fans in SA has:

1. The pricing of Apple products in SA, whilst we realize that the pricing is speculation and not facts we have some good guesstimates.

and

2. The monopoly that Core wants to cement with humorous attempts like www.stopgrey.co.za

Our wish is that Digicape, CAB and others get the right to import Apple products directly into SA, it’s good for consumers to have choice, that’s the main issue. Even better would be for Apple to come directly into the SA market. At least we’ll know were going to get good service.

Think about how South African Customers have been ripped off by monopoly’s like Telkom, Eskom and the like and get angry, very angry. Write to Apple Europe and ask for a change.

Naturally with choice comes lower prices and better service. This is the crux of the online movement.

Nothing else.

People will then have the choice to support the company’s who give good service. How can this be a bad thing?

This movement will stop immediately when there’s better Service and Pricing.

Core via RJ van Spaandonk can be as sarcastic as they want about our aims and our comparisons.. Every Apple tree starts from a small seed.

Love the Apple.

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RJ van Spaandonk from Core had a minor tirade yesterday on Twitter and has now blocked some of the Stopcore members via Twitter. His tone in these twitter posts were extremely condescending and sarcastic, a tone we have tried to avoid. The simple truth is that while StopCore.co.za might be a strong message, all we want is some engagement. Ultimately we are his clients and instead of telling us off he should really rather be interacting with us. I can say without a shadow of a doubt that if the local Mac community was spoken to on issues rather than an attitude of ambivalence and derision then sites like this would never exist. His Twitter stream was solely about pricing and that is not the only issue, not by a long stretch. All the Apple users in this country we’ve spoken to have the attitude that they will pay a premium if they get premium service that one gets from a company such as Dell in South Africa.

This post is originally from The Mac Blog and can be found here.

So, RJ van Spaandonk, Executive Director of the Core Group, has discovered Twitter. And has chosen to use it, to get his point of view out. Excellent! What this debate needs is some real engagement and some real truth. Especially after Redi Direko (once again) kicked her personal journalistic integrity to the curb, in mis-handling the debate on her show on 702 Talk Radio yesterday.

Now, I’m all about the Twitter, and I believe he has a great opportunity to engage the small but vocal and highly-networked geek community that is the SA Twitter-sphere, to both his, and Core’s advantage. Well, at least, I did. Until I saw this morning’s RJ-stream:

Reading RJ’s tweets make it perfectly clear why the Core Group has such an adversarial stance toward it’s customers. And to be clear, that’s what started the whole brouhaha. The CAB issue, the StopCore website and the price-difference fixation are all expressions of the customer dissatisfaction at the appalling, arrogant attitude which has sadly become a hallmark of the Core Group.

It comes from the top. Core’s attitude is reflected in the snide tone of RJ’s ‘facts and suggestions’ tweets. The company line is clearly an extension of RJ’s personal way of looking at the situation and handling it.

I think it’s time for Mr van Spaandonk to acknowledge his PR-Disaster status, step aside and get some professional help.
A PR agency, perhaps…

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This is a post originally posted by Craig Nicholson on CraigN.net and talks about a complicated purchasing experience

No I’m not talking about the fruit although I do find similarities between the fruit and the people who represent Apple in South Africa. The first thing to note is that Apple products have one authorised distributor in South Africa and they are the Core Group. The same company that distributes the Nintendo products at such a ridiculous mark-up.

However it seems that there are plenty of non-authorised resellers in South Africa, but the Core Group can’t seem to decide who is who. They have a local site addressing the grey product issues and they even provide a form for validating your product serial number, albeit a non-automated process. If you compare the following two pages (page 1 and page 2) you will notice that they don’t agree on who the non-authorised resellers are. I think this is ridiculous, how is the consumer supposed to know which list is correct?

Regardless, I decided I wanted a new 15” MacBook Pro 2.8 Ghz,4GB of RAM and 320GB 7200 RPM drive. Yeah I wanted the fastest processor and hard drive that the Apple store in the US offers. I proceeded to call a few of the local resellers seeing as the local online store called the Za Store provided zero customisation options.

Authorised reseller #1: Questek Broadcast Technology

I started by calling local authorised reseller Questek Broadcast Technology for a quotation on the custom configuration I wanted. After numerous unreturned calls on Wednesday and Thursday, I finally managed to speak to the one person that seems to do quotes. She promised me a quotation on email before the end of Friday. To her credit she did call me later in the day and inform me that her email was down and she’d send it when it was up again. On Tuesday I got an email stating:

I do apologise for the inconvenience, however our systems have not been working.

Please be advised that you will be getting your quote today, I just need to finalise a few prices for you once that has been done you will be getting your quote.

So much for Friday’s excuse about the email being down, she doesn’t even have the pricing on Tuesday. Mind you, I never got the quotation on Tuesday either.

Authorised reseller #2: iStore in Clearwater Mall

I called the iStore in Cresta on Wednesday and was told to email Dimitri and he’d get me a quotation by the end of the day. I’m still waiting.

Authorised reseller #3: Digicape store in The Wedge

A few friends recommended dealing with the company DigiCape. So I called their Johannesburg store on Saturday late afternoon and my details were taken for a quotation on Monday. Once again, no quotation was received.

Non-authorised reseller #1: CAB Platinum Store in Sandton City

On Saturday I visited the slick looking CAB Platinum Store in Sandton City after being advised by friends that they are useless. The first thing I noticed was that all of the standard configurations were priced around R4000 more for the exact same box product. Ridiculous. I approached the so-called Knowledge Bar to find out about a custom configuration and was delegated to a back office woman who proceeded to quote me on a standard configuration machine with an additional 320GB 5400 RPM drive. Hmmm, useful, NOT! After I reiterated my requirements my details were taken down and a quotation was promised on Monday. To date, no quotation has been received.

After much frustration and irritation I realised that in South Africa, if you wish to buy and Apple product, you need to simply accept that the distributor, Core Group, knows what you want and its one of the standard configurations. However a few friends did suggest that I go to the USA and buy one there. My problem with this would be the warranty although I’ve heard that local warranty support has much to be desired.

Determined to get myself a Mac in time for Christmas, I called up Incredible Connection in Sandton City on Sunday afternoon and purchased a new 15” MacBook Pro with 2.53GHz processor, 4GB of RAM and 320GB 5400 RPM hard drive.

My advice to anyone considering buying a Mac, go for it, and hopefully the Core Group sorts their reseller channel out so you have a better experience that I did.

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