Apple CEO Tim Cook apologized to Chinese customers over the company’s warranty policy. He indicated that Apple will improve customer service in the country.
This began when China Central Television criticized the Apples’s after-sales iPhone customer service in China because it gave only a one-year warranty, while in China the law is two years. It also said that phone owners had to pay about $90 to replace a faulty back cover.
While Apple did not immediately respond to the controversy, several Chinese celebrities posted harsh comments on Weibo. That was followed up by critical articles in the People’s Daily and later China’s State Administration of Industry and Commerce, with images of Chinese journalists being turned away at Apple’s office appearing on TV.
“We realize that a lack of communication in this process has led the outside to believe that Apple is arrogant and doesn’t care or value consumers’ feedback,” said Cook in the open letter. “We sincerely apologize for any concern or misunderstanding this has brought to the customers.”
The timing of the pressure was questioned by many, with the celebrities postings coinciding with the original report almost too coincidentally. Some speculate that this was a demonstration of China’s federal power against American companies, even large successful ones like Apple.
Bill Bishop, a Beijing technology analyst and publisher of the online newsletter Sinocism China, believes that Apple’s explosive growth in China might have outpaced the company’s ability to fully train and prepare its work force and management team to deal with the challenges of the Chinese market. “Whatever the merits of the case, Apple’s not going to win here,” Mr. Bishop said in an interview Monday. “Apple can’t fight this.”
Anna Han, an associate professor of law at Santa Clara University, says the apology and the change in its warranty policy puts them in the right in both a cultural and legal sense in China. “It says, ‘We’re accused of something and we’re doing something about it.'” said Han.
Source: New York Times
