Greeks Want Improved Apple Service

Apple relies on third-party distributors and resellers to handle operations in other countries, a situation that distances Apple’s quality of service, customer support and even ethics from their international customers. At the same time, the world’s younger and more educated consumers are learning about Apple’s products, and demanding the same level of retail experience as Americans. These two forces have now clashed, creating several international movements to bring Apple directly to other countries, including Greece and Poland. The former movement, in particular, is being led by an articulate group of Apple enthusiasts who call the country’s distributor “terrible” and are asking for their de-authorization by Apple.

Here is what Andreas Belivanakis wrote to me from his home country of Greece. He is one supporter of the “We Want Apple Greece” or “Apple Hellas” movement begun by Dimitris Karakatsanis. His opinions, while critical of Rainbow, are reasoned enough that I have not edited his remarks:

“There is an Apple IMC (Independent Marketing Company) in Greece: Rainbow Computer, S.A. They are the exclusive importer of Apple goods in Greece, and they are terrible.

“What WeWantAppleGreece.com is seeking, in effect, is to convince Apple Computer to deauthorize Rainbow and establish an official presence in Greece themselves.

“Rainbow make their prospective retail customers go through a tedious, arcane, bureaucratic paperwork application and approval process before they’d sell them anything. In doing so, their bureaucracy rivals even that of the Greek government, and that says a lot.

“Rainbow offers no financing/leasing whatsover. They demand cash up front, before even the delivery of product.

“That’s mind-boggling if you think about it. In any other store of any other company, a customer presents cash or a credit card, and walks away with product. Instant financing is also available and widely advertized, but not with Rainbow, who patronizingly tell you to “go get a loan from a bank”.

“Rainbow operates the website applestore.gr, the only way to purchase product directly through them. However, to order through that website, you have to “sign-in” using your SSN and your Rainbow-assigned customer code, only available after having gone through the arcane, paper-shuffling and downright offensive customer approval process described above.

“Rainbow has an off-again/on-again relationship with their [few] authorized dealers. Rainbow are so difficult to work with, that a huge network of grey marketers, outnumbering the Rainbow authorized resellers, has sprung up in Greece. These grey marketers import Apple products from nobody-knows-where and resell them locally. Of course, no official Apple warranty applies to product sold through these channels, as Rainbow won’t honor it.

“Rainbow makes an inadequately localized version of the Mac OS and forces customers to pay 100-200 Euros more on top of the retail price of a given Mac model to acquire it.

“Rainbow only sells the Greek OS together with a CPU. You cannot buy it separately, even if you are willing to pay for it! If you purchase the English version of say, an iMac, and then change your mind and decide you want to pay more for the localized (Greek) version of the OS, Rainbow won’t let you have it!

“Rainbow only sells a localized (Greek) keyboard together with a CPU. You cannot buy it separately, even if you are willing to pay for it! They’d sell you an Apple Greek keyboard to replace a broken/malfunctioning keyboard you already own, but only if you can prove you purchased it from them and return it to Rainbow prior to picking up your new one. So, if your Greek Apple keyboard is, say, stolen, you are out of luck. You’d have to buy an entirely new CPU.

“Rainbow is the exclusive importer for Quark as well. Their prices, last time I checked, for a copy of Quark Xpress were 2,500 Euros ($3,190).

“Rainbow’s service department operates like a 1960’s mainframe profit center, with respect to their exorbitant pricing policy and slow turnaround time.

“In Athens, a city of 5 million, Rainbow maintains only two, rather small Apple “stores”, for exhibition purposes only. They sell no product through these “stores” and their employees have no dress code, bear no name tags, and smoke insidiously in the premises and on the floor, in the presence of customers. The Rainbow HQ is no better, with employees smoking everywhere in the premises, and thick layers of dust covering the products on display in their first floor “computer museum”, disgracing the image of Apple Computer in Greece.

“In their “stores” Rainbow offers free seminars on various Apple products such as iLife, FileMaker, etc. I have attended one of them, and that was enough for me. All they do is go through a sales presentation, telling in summary rather than showing in detail the capabilities of the products.

“Several weeks after the introduction of new models, Rainbow still lists older configurations for sale with the old price tags, with no announcement whatsoever about the new models on their website or stores, while at the same time, all Apple websites worldwide list the new products with the new prices.

“Personalization is not available for iPods purchased in Greece.

“The list of grievances goes on and on. Apple Europe has consistently turned a blind eye to all these inequities, as if they do not exist.

“It is important to note that this unacceptable situation is being perpetuated by Apple Europe, the employees of which have a vested interest (job security being the main issue here) in keeping things they way they are. Only if Apple Corporate were to stop referring every incoming letter or email originating from Europe to Apple Europe and instead took a keen interest to the Greek market issue themselves, will this situation have a chance of getting resolved.

“I’m afraid, however, that WeWantAppleGreece.com fails to communicate their petition. The complaints they have from Rainbow and what they ask of Apple Corporate are not obvious to visitors of their website, as they are obscured by incomprehensible, vague arguments and poor English, as well as a misdirected predilection toward the use of the term “Hellas” which is how the Greeks themselves refer to their home country.”