I am a big fan of looking at how companies and businesses operate. I read a lot of books/blogs about business and by successful members of the business community. Today I had an interesting experience with a company that I am somewhat familiar with: Apple. I have been using a Mac for about 6-7 years, and I think they are awesome, every experience that I have had up until today has been great, but today was definitely a different story. I walked into my local Apple Retail store today, helping a coworker try to fix a giftcard problem. I had purchased a gift card about a month ago, it was a gift that my Pastor wanted to give a friend as a thank you. The funny thing is, Apple had never charged us, and there was no money on the gift card! Big Problem! This could have been an easy fix, but instead, the associate told us we had to call corporate. So, we went out of the store made a phone call. 30 minutes later, still on the phone with "corporate" (which we are pretty sure is somewhere outside of the Western Hemisphere!) we are told that the only person who can fix the problem is the store manager. Back into The Apple store we go, and talk to a manager. He goes to the phone and we stand there... about 20 more minutes!
Turns out, Apple didn't charge us for the gift card, and therefore didn't put any money on the card...wow, I am pretty sure we told them that the first time we walked in!
This story got me thinking...How often do we treat people the same way. They often have a problem when they come to us, and we send them in as many different ways as possible. In ministry, we are in the people business, we should make it as easy on them as possible by eliminating hoops that they have to jump thru.
For the record, I am still a huge Apple fan, and this little experience will not change that!
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