I got a slim, glossy laptop, a few accessories and a whole new computing experience in return. Quite remarkable because two days earlier I was a non-believer. Macs were expensive, incompatible with Microsoft and 'more for designers'. But customer service and visualising the experience won the day. 
I can't complain about the service I got in PCWorld, online, and down the famed Tottenham Court Road. (It was better than my experience of sales assistants when buying a printer - "I don't know the difference, I'll just look in the brochure.") I could see the brands and understand the relative specs. What I couldn't do was visualise me using them. There was no emotional connection. Just rows of same looking products with a spec label, and no easy way to compare them because each label commented on different aspects. Doesn't that just drive you back to the web? It does me. The Apple experience was very different. Here, when I explained what I wanted to use the computer for, I got product recomendations, walkthrough of the relevant software, the option of one-to-one tuition and 15% discount on production of my son and his student uni card.
Buying a computer is still a big investment. The output it produces is a showcase of us. Whether we use it to crop and auto-adjust the home photo collection, create a website or make a business presentation, it lasts for years. Getting it wrong is costly. Being able to try the hardware - with the software we want on it - and receive a little personal tuition - these are the 3 keys to emotional connection. If it's only about price and product spec we may as well use a comparison web site which includes customer reviews and be done with stores and inexperienced sales assistants.
Apple's strength lies in its ownership of the hardware and retail elements of the supply chain, so it is able to co-ordinate the whole hardware/software/instore customer buying experience and make it tangible rather than imagined. Tangible experience is what converted me.
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