Apple Continues to Provide Top-Rated Tech Support on Strength of Genius Bar

[0815]

Free lifetime support? I'm missing something.

What kind of support can you get from the Genius bar on an out-of-warranty device, or something past the 90-day complimentary support period?

You would be surprised what they do even if you are way out of warranty. They are in general super generous in fixing some things for free or sometimes for phones they just swap it out for a new/refurbished one.

Than there are the many things that don't actually need repair, but they discuss your options free of charge - and the spend a lot of time with those people . (Those are often the less technical users that just need someone to show them the right direction)

 

[perkedel]

Consumer Reports praises the Genius Bar's free lifetime support as a differentiating factor over similar services, which generally require paying for help.

there's free lifetime support? I didn't know that since the notes that came with my apple devices say 90 day tech with a year material warranty.

 

[MacMyDay]

Apple used to have terrible customer service. I remember needing a replacement charger on a MacBook (or iBook as it was at the time) and it took them 3 attempts and over a month to get it to me. However, times have definitely changed with the Apple stores. A few weeks ago I dropped my iPhone 6 and cracked the screen (having had every iPhone since the 3G and never having had any issues, I consider this my lifetime achievement). I go into the store and for £79 they replace it with a brand new iPhone and I'm out in about 15 minutes with it all setup. They truly could not have been more helpful.

 

[bbeagle]

Every time I have scheduled an appointment they have always been extremely behind schedule (by at least an hour on 2 different occasions) and they have REQUIRED an Apple support contract to book. Not sure where the free is coming from?

Not true at all.

The Genius Bar fixes old equipment out of AppleCare all the time. I brought an old 2009 Macbook in just last year to figure out an issue. They diagnosed the issue for free. (And I fixed it myself, didn't use them)

Best Buy wanted $49 just to diagnose the issue - Apple was free, which is why people love them.

 

[teslo]

And I am not willing to accept not being able to have my toaster sitting on the edge of the bathtub while I'm in my bubble bath. :roll eyes:


Get real. You put liquids around electronics you accept the risks. Period.

get real. you put a seal in the keyboard (like a lenovo model someone [helpfully] pointed out in reply earlier) and this isn't an issue. that's my original talking point. and by looking around in discussion threads, i'm clearly not alone in being a 'stupid naive and irresponsible' drink spiller.

if your job required you at your computer literally for 14 hours with no break on deadline, you'd eat and drink near it to. no client continually hires a freelancer who passes out before delivery.

not everyone shares your life experiences on a daily basis, but thanks for the Pro Tip.

 

[AlecZ]

The tech support people themselves are great, but Apple's warranty policies limit how helpful they can be if any parts need to be replaced.

 

[TMDR]

What I really like is that when you ask them to tighten (or replace one of) the screws on your MacBook, they bring it back, and start cleaning your whole laptop in front of you. Never seen that anywhere.

Also, with the common iPhone 4(S) problem with the lock button getting stuck I have been serviced like I am a king that can't live without his phone. I just made an appointment with a comment of what was wrong and when I arrived the Genius check the problem, and said: one sec. When he came back, he had a box with a new phone with a sticker with my name on it. They just reserved that in advance so that it would be there to quickly service me. That is why I buy Apple. Quality, but when in case it breaks: GENIUS service. I just feel special there.

 

[AlecZ]

Not true at all.

The Genius Bar fixes old equipment out of AppleCare all the time. I brought an old 2009 Macbook in just last year to figure out an issue. They diagnosed the issue for free. (And I fixed it myself, didn't use them)

Best Buy wanted $49 just to diagnose the issue - Apple was free, which is why people love them.

They didn't fix it for free, did they? You said that they diagnose it, which is good, but that's not fixing it.

 

[2457282]

no surprises here - in the rare cases I had go go the the genius bar, they never met my expectations, they always went way above my expectation.

I agree that they are the best help desk in the industry from a consumer perspective. I have only had one negative experience when they were not able to replace my screen until the next day (even though I had made an appointment).

But as a fanboy and techy, when I go to them, I have already diagnosed the problem and just want it fixed. They of course need to go through the script and testing things out before agreeing with my conclusion. My only wish is that they had a genius bar for genius that was separate from the bar for the commoners.

 

[applesith]

Not surprising considering how much more vertically integrated Apple is compared to its PC competitors.

 

[bbeagle]

They didn't fix it for free, did they? You said that they diagnose it, which is good, but that's not fixing it.

Of course they won't fix everything for free if it's out of warranty. Why would anyone buy a warranty then?

I've seen people get things like memory fixed for free if it's bad.

 

[Tech198]

First hand experience,, while definitely not the last, they bend over backward for customers which most others don't do, would be the only thing that puts Apple in the lead here...

Besides, this stops at the retail level.... I have a literally argue, complain, and p**ss of the executives at Apple, just so i could get a free iPhone from them, which was their fault originally anyway.

No company should take 7 weeks of constant nagging to get what they deserve, so my advice.... if your got a valid reason to, be prepared for a battle on ya hands. This is regards of what Apple puts up on their pages regarding their policies.... I always wondered why they do their own pages on government based policies, but its just to reassure users better.

Aside from that,, ya the retail genius bar's are ok

I wouldn't hardly call it best, particularly, when all other companies must "follow the rules" when I look at it, a waste of my time since even i know it will not solve the issue i actually asked. But all companies must do that i know..... however the geniuses are a little "off", since every one u speak too must go over the same troubleshooting steps u've already done...

 

[DanCorleone]

In 2008 brought a 2005 20" inch iMac and they replaced the hard drive and they insisted they would only replace it with the same size hard drive as originally in the machine even though it was more expensive than just buying a current hard drive. And the problem turned out to be a bad stick of RAM.

 

[tbrinkma]

Free lifetime support? I'm missing something.

What kind of support can you get from the Genius bar on an out-of-warranty device, or something past the 90-day complimentary support period?

Quite a bit, actually. Not all support requires hardware replacement. The vast majority probably doesn't.

Back in 2010 or so, I took in a used PowerMac G4 ("Sawtooth") box that I'd bought to use as a server. I was having trouble getting a cheap PCI SATA card, and a better graphics card recognized. (I'd done the research, and that particular board was supported by drivers that came with OS X.)

Despite the fact that the system was *significantly* out of warranty (released in 1999) was purchased used, had an after-market CPU upgrade, and they couldn't have actually done anything more than replace screws if there were actually a hardware issue, they and some diagnostics, identified a configuration issue, and got me up and running.

 

[Tech198]

(Blue was always my favorite color) anyway...

 

[0815]

The tech support people themselves are great, but Apple's warranty policies limit how helpful they can be if any parts need to be replaced.

But in my limited experience in going to the genius bar (I so hate that word), they always try to bend the rules and usually try treat you as if you have a warranty (Of course, there are reasonable limits to that)

 

[Cervelo-Van]

I have been using computers since the first days of the PC. I was stuck in PC land till 10 years ago. EVERY interaction I have had with Apple has been stellar, both on and off-line. In the days when I was using a PC, there was no one to turn to.

Apple is by far the best

 

[maflynn]

I think its great but by the same token there is room for improvement.

My daughter's iPod touch broke, and I need to make an appointment at my local apple store. The earliest I could make it was over 7 days away.

I that is one of the areas that I'm personally unhappy with.

 

[Kaibelf]

yeah, i lost a whole computer to a simple last-two-sits-of-a-bottle-of-beer a couple years ago. whole thing wasted, and i'm sorry, but i'm not about to sink another $1500 into replacing the insides over a 1-2 week period where i have to RENT a replacement as well. logical or not, when i get it back, i'm not gonna trust the thing for my heavy workflow on strict deadline when my rent depends on it.

i really expect some sort of water resistant seal that still allows heat dissipation on ALL laptops keyboards, soon i hope. it's just such an incredible achilles heel, i refuse to accept my $3k investments are in theory 2 seconds away from a liquid fatality.

plus, i'm pretty sure i couldv'e saved the thing if apple used normal goddam screws on the back. sometimes, your special 'apple screwdriver' is nowhere to be found. #fact

So it's Apple's fault because you failed to follow the most basic rule around computers: avoid eating and drinking.

Perhaps a machine aimed at the education market would be more appropriate? I don't blame BMW for not making cars the same as Fisher Price.

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thanks so much.

1) admirable ethic of yours, but not entirely plausible for everyone, especially for professionals who can sometimes spend 8-14 hrs on their laptop per day.
2) wouldn't have helped. i honestly don't see how this helps beyond a minority of situations involving spills. those tend to come from above, not horizontally or from below.

1. Really? Professionals who can't step away for 5 minutes to eat and drink? It's your desk, not La Amistad. Buy an Apple watch and it'll remind you just how silly it is to sit somewhere for 14 hours.

2. See #1.

 

[peterh988]

I think its great but by the same token there is room for improvement.

My daughter's iPod touch broke, and I need to make an appointment at my local apple store. The earliest I could make it was over 7 days away.

I that is one of the areas that I'm personally unhappy with.

The problem is the genius bar is full of people who've been fiddling with their phones, toggled something on or off without realising or knowing what it does, (such as airplane mode) then storming into the Apple Store demanding they replace their 'broken' phone.

A genius once told me their No.1 problem after the launch of the iPhone 4 was people complaining the left speaker didn't work (actually the microphone)

Pre iPhone, I could get a same day genius bar appointment, now it's 5-7 days.

Personally, I'm happy with the service I received. A repair that was supposed to take 48 hrs was done in 90 mins, and they swapped out a faulty MBP cored for a newer C2D, and let me keep the charger too! They even fitted a 3rd party wifi card in my mac pro free of charge.

 

[mwinget]

Grand Central Genius Bar

This past weekend, I was in NYC and somehow my Watch came unpaired from my phone and wouldn't re-pair.

I walked to the Grand Central Apple Store and talked with one of the worker bees at the front of the store. He told me the only way to fix it would be to do a phone reset (which I had pretty much figured out, but wanted confirmation). since the WATCH part still worked, I figured I would wait until I got back to my hotel to put it on the charger to the reset.

Well, the worker bee, in his eagerness to help goes ahead and resets the watch and THEN asks if I have the charger cord with me to use to re-pair the phone. Well, of course, walking around NYC I wasn't carrying the cord with me. he said "tough break" and left.

I wandered around to the Genius Bar, and even without an appointment was able to get one of the employees to let me connect up to a watch charger and re-pair my phone. EXCELLENT customer service from the Genius Bar!!

 

[seatton]

Congrats to Angela for such a great job. Oh wait..

 

[britboyj]

As a former Apple retail (and corporate) employee, I can say that while the general public may be impressed with the Genius Bar of late, it's definitely taken a huge step down since Ron Johnson left.

Procedures that used to take 15 minutes now take nearly 45. They're never on time, and the ability to make a "customer service call" and make personal calls on whether to replace a customers device free of charge are no longer even an option.

It's kind of sad.

Still better than Geek Squad though.

 

[ericinboston]

Although I applaud Apple for having great tech support, you really can't compare Apple Support vs. the entire Wintel industry:

1)Only Apple provides walk-in support...in-person...being able to PHYSICALLY show Apple what is wrong and walk Apple through exactly the steps to reproduced the problem. It doesn't even make much difference of what kind of product you are troubleshooting...it's easier to troubleshoot a car problem in person...or a watch...or a dishwasher...etc.

2)As the article mentions, Apple owns the hardware AND the software...so Apple has *deep* technical expertise on exactly what should be causing a problem...unlike 10 Wintel vendors, each offering dozens of models of computers, all with different manufacturer/vendor parts (such as a Dell XPS computer being available to have 3 different video cards in it or 2-3 different OSes or slightly different revisions of a long-selling computer model (Lenovo is classic in this sense)).

3)Similar to #2, Apple sells very few product models compared to any single Wintel vendor so the Support staff's knowledge is more focused.

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...I wandered around to the Genius Bar, and even without an appointment was able to get one of the employees to let me connect up to a watch charger and re-pair my phone. EXCELLENT customer service from the Genius Bar!!

I would not equate excellent customer service with an employee allowing you to plug your watch into a power cord for 2 minutes and re-pair. Would you give a bank stellar comments because they let you use their pen to sign your check?

 

[nikhsub1]

no surprises here - in the rare cases I had go go the the genius bar, they never met my expectations, they always went way above my expectation.

Except that one time I sent my MBP in for repair and got back a totally different machine than the one I had sent in (read refurbished unit). A *****torm ensued and I walked away with a rMBP. I was somewhat still not pleased because the machine they took from me was the last 17" MBP they made with the AG screen... loving my rMBP now though after having to buy an external monitor.