If, instead, they thought of a warranty as an extension of their marketing conversation and relationship with their customers, and invested in them correctly, it would actually make customers significantly more loyal.
Why AppleCare Works - I feel that they care for me
An example for me in the last month is that both my phone and laptop have broken. The phone developed a stuck key and the laptop has had issues with the logic board and other things. If this were a normal product, I would have thrown it out and bought their competitor's ones. But, it is Apple, and, rather than be frustrated at them, I find myself grateful.They tried to fix both of the devices and, when that didn't work, they just replaced them fully with new units without question, shipping boxes, etc. I just walked in and walked out with a new unit.
I did pay for this with the AppleCare warranty, which is not cheap, but I have received over $5000 of parts on my current laptop (Used every day and has 100,000+ airplane miles on it) without question.
Takeaway
For me, this is at least a 10x dollar value so far on the warranty cost and a huge gain from the fact that I don't worry which city I am in, whether it is SF, NYC, London, STHLM or Shanghai. If something breaks, I will have help.For Apple, it is a huge value because I continue to buy more Apple products both personally and for people in our company, so the cost is well worth it because they have created a loyal customer who will invest a lot more than the cost of supporting a few devices which break.
