Just got a new MacBook Pro today brought to me by the UPS guy.

Now, to be clear about this, I am not an Apple co-religionist.  While I’m starting to really like Macs, I do not believe…  I have not yet drunk the coolaid.   And being a long-time windows user,  it is still far easier for me to get things done on my windows machines than on any of our Macs.

It is worth pointing out – there are no Windows raving fans.  There are many – shall I say many, many – Windows users, but I’m really not sure anyone except the Microsoft shareholders, are in love.

Today I had two tiny experiences that make it easier to see why.

First, the new laptop was scheduled to come on June 30th, and it arrived on June 26th – a full four days (and one weekend) ahead of schedule.  You know as well as I do those people know their build, handling and shipping schedules and knew for certain when it would arrive.  But they gave me a “reasonable” delivery date, and vastly over-delivered.

Satisfaction point won!

The second experience is equally impressive.  If you buy a new laptop from either Dell or HP – the two leading US Windows contenders, that little laptop comes in a box that could hold a small refrigerator.  And the stuff that comes out of that box easily cost a small forest’s worth of paper and cardboard.

Not the MacBook Pro!  It came in a box so small, I was sure UPS was delivering something else.  The box was the size of an old-fashioned attache case, and yet cradled the Mac as carefully as a hen carries her eggs in four small cardboard corners and one layer of tight poly wrapping.

Here’s the lesson.  The Mac people think everything through in great detail.  They “engineered” that packing as carefully as they’ve engineered the new aluminum case.

Details count.  And customers notice them.

Are you considering the details in your business that carefully?   I know up until now, there are many I haven’t been.

Now, I’m inspired.