To flip the coin over from my suboptimal service experience last week, I feel like I should relay the fantastic experience I had this week with PowerBookResQ.

This past weekend, I decided to pull my iBook (the laptop I used before treating myself to a 12” Powerbook last year) out and install all of the available updates, clean off all my old documents, and finally deauthorize it from my iTunes account. I hadn’t used it in over six or eight months, but when I put it into storage, it was running perfectly well, and had only been retired because of my craving for a smaller, more powerful laptop. I turned it on, got through all the OS X updates, and then started hearing a little metallic noise coming from the hard disk. The noise started increasing in frequency, and then about ten minutes after it started, the computer crashed and refused to restart. After a bunch of diagnostic steps, I gave in to the obvious — the hard disk had died, and if I wanted to keep the machine around and usable, I’d have to replace it.

Opening up an iBook to replace a hard disk is notoriously difficult, but I still contemplated it for a while. I decided to see what companies were offering to replace hard disks in the machines online, too, and found the folks at PowerBookResQ. According to their website, they offer a 72-hour turnaround on hard disk replacements, and after a conversation with them, I decided to give it a try. On Tuesday, I called them around 4PM and placed my order for a 60Gb drive, and Wednesday afternoon, a custom laptop shipping box appeared on my doorstep. I put my laptop in, sealed the box, called DHL to arrange the return trip, and by 7PM on Wednesday, DHL had come to take the computer away. Tracking it, I saw that it arrived back at PowerBookResQ yesterday (Thursday) morning, and then when I got back from work today (Friday), it was waiting for me on the landing outside my apartment. That’s a less than 72-hour turnaround, and the machine works perfectly.

While there are plenty of companies that do their job well, it’s rare for me to be totally stunned by the service that I receive. This is one of those times, and I can’t recommend them enough.