As MobileMe and Gmail go down, huge customer service differences pop up

Davey Winder
Tuesday, 12 August 2008 15:28

Business IT - Networking

Indeed, we get a picture of two completely different approaches to customer service. Or perhaps more pointedly, to customers themselves.

So while Todd Jackson over at Gmail says "We don't usually post about problems like this on our blog, but we wanted to make an exception in this case since so many people were impacted." Apple says nothing.

Unless you count the very brief status history postings which reveal that between 12.45 and 14.30 PDT on the 11th August "MobileMe members were unable to access MobileMe Mail. Normals service has been restored. We apologize for any inconvenience."

Unfortunately, the 'normal service has been restored' thing was rather quickly proved wrong when, immediately after another status history posting covering 14.30 to 17.15 the same day said "MobileMe members were intermittently unable to access MobileMe Mail using a desktop email application, iPhone or iPod touch. Access to www.me.com/mail was unaffected. Normal service has been restored."

Google 1, Apple 0 has to be the scorecard for this particular game. Unfortunately, if Apple do not get to the core of customer service real soon now it could find itself juiced by Google. After all, they are competing in pretty much the same space with MobileMe and assorted online Google applications including Gmail...