And now I must pit Apple Computer company. We have a small art department here at work, we do most of our own advertising development. Being art guys and all they prefer to work with macs. Cool with me, I like both Macs and PC’s, don’t mind supporting either. On the plus side I rarely have a problem with Apple hardware, but god forbid you actually have to call their support. In fact I didn’t even want real support, just a place to order a new power supply for the G3 server which died. Didn’t need diagnostics, just a power supply. I had to call them no less than 6 different times. SIX! For whatever reason the serial number on the 4 year old machine does not turn up in their system. Checked, double checked, and tripple checked, I have the number correct, they just can’t find it. You would think being a huge computer company and all that you could simply specify the part I need and order it. Nope. No serial, no service. And instead of owning up to the fact that they are working with a poorly designed system the first tech just hangs up, the second blindly transferrs me to another tech without notice to her or me. The third and fourth try resulted in the stupid automated attendant hanging up on me. Yes, the machine, I suspect for kicks, hung up on me too. On call 5 it was my fault, I pressed the wrong key too quickly. On call 6 I explained my woes to the guy who picked up after a 15 minute hold. I asked him if I can just get the part through a 3rd party, he says no, only apple can get it. Arrrghhh!!! I finally did a a little digging with Google and found, much to my surprise, the exact part I needed on a nice little website. They answered on the first ring, had the part in stock, and didn’t make me jump through hoops. So I say screw you Apple. You should be practically giving hand jobs away with every call to keep what little of the 4% market share you have left, instead we get an amalgam of misinformation which is your sorry excuse for a technical support system.
Well, I guess Apple is pretty much stuck between Scylla and Charybdis. If they hire decent tech support people, it costs money, and then people bitch "But they’re so much * more expensive *. And if they don’t spend the money, people bitch because they have bad tech support.
Although it is hard to come up with an excuse for not being able to find a serial number. It’s not like they have that many models of G3 machines out there.
Interesting. A recent Consumer Reports article ranked Apple #1 in customer service:
Perhaps you caught them on a bad day? 
That just means that they’re the best out there, not that they’re good.
I was really surprised myself, previous experiences with Apple have been good. I will say this, with the exception of the last call I got through without being on hold for hours on end. And it wasn’t so much a tech support issues as a parts ordering problem. I should be able to call the apple store and specify a part I want without jumping through hoops. Can’t find my serial number? For god’s sake fake it! Are you going to lose a sale becuase someone in data entry screwed up? Jeeze!
I love Macs, but insofar as I’ve been utilizing them since they were cute little toaster boxes with black 'n white screens, I’ve seen a wide range of quality in the service department.
My WallStreet is the best computer I’ve ever owned, but we didn’t get off to a good start. The model has a design defect: the AC power plugs into a stupidly designed & ridiculously fragile connector on the sound card, and some of the connectivity there apparently depends on the torsional integrity of a bit of spot soldering. When it cracks, AC in goes from reliable to intermittent to missing in action.
Mine developed problems less than 2 weeks after purchase. The local techs (not Apple employees but Apple-certified official repair center) took their own sweet time to figure out that they couldn’t figure it out, and 10 days later said it had to go back to Apple. On their advice and the advice of Apple, I removed anything added or modified from the model baseline, which in my case included the RAM (because I’d gone with more RAM than standard). The local shop ties my computer to the slowest UPS turtle they could find, ignoring my offer to pay extra for expedited. Apple takes another 4 days to receive it, process it, get it on someone’s workbench, and the idiot, after about 3 days of testing, puts it back in the box and ties it to the turtle again with the note that my computer won’t boot because it has no RAM, end of diagnosis, again ignoring my note to call me to allow me to pay for overnighting. I scream for several hours at everyone in sight and finally get it overnighted back to Apple, which this time narrows down the problem and repairs it under warranty and sends it back. By the time I get it back, fully repaired, I’ve been deprived of a brand new top-of-the-line computer I just bought for over a month.
Oh, and a few months later I find that it’s a known issue, a design defect that both the local and the Cupertino folks should’ve known about. I’ve never really forgiven them for that disaster. If that had been my first experience with Apple tech support I’d probably be typing this on a Gateway!
But their record otherwise has been good. When my 7100 wouldn’t network, they sent a guy to my house and he tested the wires and the little dongle thingie (aka ethernet transceiver) and bugchecked the OS networking settings and files, eventually replaced a faulty board in the machine itself. Showed up on time and did thorough work.
This will be a mac/pc flamewar by the 30th post.
<i really miss my amiga>
Even with over a decade of use, I have yet to call Apple Computer for any sort of service problems.
I dunno, I think we can all unite when it comes to hating tech support. Apple got a 74 in that survey link I posted, where a score of 80 is “very satisfied” - nobody is very satisfied?! Ouch.
I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed.
Wow, 74 is the best?
I liked my one experience with AppleCare. My iPod’s headphones were starting to die, and after I filled out an online form, I got a new pair mailed to my house the next week, no questions asked.
I used to be an A.A.S.P. certified tech for several years. I got the pleasure of dealing with a whole other echelon of Apple techs.
Buncha pricks and know nothings.
AMIGA!?!, hey, has anyone seen my “Fat Agnes” drive?
<the right people will get it>
and, in the interest of equal representation, the following links give you an idea what tech support has to deal with when dealing with DEU’s (Defective End-Users) and other sources of ID-10-T errors due to ESO issues* (Equipment Smarter than Operator)
*The following post sponsored by The Buzzword Council, buzzwords, they’re what’s for dinner
Yeah. From my personal experience, computer hardware tech support turns out to be rather bad. But it can be good at times. Dell, for example, has very good tech support and RMA procedures – when you don’t get their Indian call center. Then they just hang up on you after you give them your laptop’s service code. But if you get their American call center, you typically get a box overnighted to you to ship your laptop in. They pick it up and return it within a week.
I think the problem is too much cost-cutting, which leads to bad tech support and shoddy equipment, which puts more strain on the tech support department. One guy had a rather nasty experience with Dell which he chronicled on his website:
It’s a six-parter, but it gives some really good insight into what Dell does to its customers.
I thought Apple was moving toward more standard equipment, what with using IDE drives and USB mice and keyboards. Now you’re saying that the freakin’ power supply, a part that on many computers can be replaced at Best Buy for $20, is something you have to special order from the manufacturer?
Never had a problem with any of the Macs i’ve used, but trying to find out something on their website help forums is an absolute pain in the fucking arse. Is it some kind of different power cord connection in the USA (yes I know the difference between the voltage in the UK and USA)? The power cords here are the standard ones that work with CD players/Kettles etc.
Still, they need to sort that website out. I’ve spent many an hour trying to figure tiny problems out on my own because of that.
In the interests of being fair I should probably mention that my support experiences with pretty much every PC company has been abysmal. I’ve used Dell, IBM, and Compaq…they all have their problems.
Dell recently brought back their outsourced support for coorporate customers. Regular Joe Users will still get our Indian speaking friends but businesses that are sufficiently large should be routed to their American call centers. At least then you can understand the guy when he asks for your serial number for the 4th time. Why bother having the computer make me enter the serial if the tech is just going to ask me the same thing 15 minutes later when he finally answers the phone?
That was according to Apple. When I searhed on Google I managed to find a replacement part from dvwarehouse.com. They were quick, polite, and it went out the door yesterday. It should arrive here this morning around 10am. No serial number needed.