When you think of corporate leadership, many people think of guys that are so rich and powerful (picture the bankers' pen from the WaMu commercial) that they don't care about the little guy--you and me, the customers that actually support their business, the people who made them as rich as they are. Yes, there are the Dan Gilberts and Bill Emersons of the world who really listen to each and every one of us "little people," but those types of leaders are somewhat rare, in my humble opinion. So it surprised me when I read this story about a guy who had a really crappy customer experience trying to get his Mac laptop fixed by Apple. He got so fed up, he wrote an e-mail to their CEO, Steve Jobs himself. To the customer's surprise, he received a response THE VERY NEXT DAY from his personal assistant promising that he'd get a new laptop (which he received only the day after the assistant e-mailed him) as well as his old one back (so he could transfer his data from one to the other). Now THAT'S service! They may have fallen down to begin with, but at least they made it right. AWESOME!

From the customer's e-mail:

This is not the best way to deal with a support headache, but I have to admit that Steve actually seems to care about my business. Dude got [stuff] *done*.

Read the full story here: http://consumerist.com/consumer/apple/get-your-defective-laptop-replaced-by-sending-well+written-emails-to-steve-jobs-256931.php