Apple Gets Top Marks on 'Tech Support Showdown' List

[tps3443]

I’ve only used Apple Support one time in my life, I am a new Apple user as of this year. My iPad Pro 11” was locked on the home screen, and I couldn’t shut it down or do anything aside from swiping left, and swiping right. They were very fast at replying via apple SMS messages. And the guy told me about the hard rest, volume up, volume down, and hold the power button and viola! I was very happy to have my iPad back. I felt kinda dumb considering how easy this was, and the fact that I am a very technical person myself.

Anyways, they are great. I have AppleCare+ too and if I ever need it, I hope it goes just as smooth.

I love Apple so far, awesome products, great service. I’m becoming a fanboy already.

 

[inkswamp]

Really have to question the validity of any customer support ranking that puts Dell in third.

I've dealt with their support many, many times in my profession and they are consistently indifferent and incompetent. The only way that's true is if everyone under them is even worse which would be hard to believe.

 

[Paultmaine]

Well done Apple,

 

[dantastic]

I'm not sure I agree with the high score awarded, or the bar has been set very low.
Apple's support used to be pretty good but over the last 2 years I must say it has got a lot worse. Yes, they are chirpy saying that they will help you and they will take ownership of the case but all too many times they are still doing their best to pawn you off to someone else.

Last time I needed support I had to be transferred to a Senior Advisor before I was asked to do any form of troubleshooting what so ever.

 

[Pagemakers]

I find in-store apple support to be fairly good providing you aren’t dealing with an “Apple Fan God” then you have no hope because everything must be your fault and absolutely nothing to do with a “faulty” Apple product.

Online support is a different kettle of fish. I find them overwhelmingly sickly and cuddly-feely. Too focused on buzz-words and political correctness.

The times I’ve needed online support they have never found a resolution to my issues and never get back to me if things are too hard to solve.

 

[gnasher729]

Then there is the cost of what should be reasonably priced repairs.

Absolutely. The camera on my wife's slightly over two year old iPhone 6s stopped working. She took it to the Apple Store, they fixed it, cleaned up the phone - and showed her a bill for £0. Zero. She found that was very reasonably priced.
[doublepost=1556189363][/doublepost]

I'm surprised that Apple doesn't lead phone support by an even greater margin. I've called them four times that I can recall in the past 3 years. Absolutely excellent support each time.

At the top it's hard to get a bigger margin. They were close to the maximum. Look at it like this: The missed 9 points, Razer missed 12. Thats 25% better.

 

[Music Ambulance]

Bah! I wouldn’t call the inability to differertiate the tech-savvy from a novice great service, especially when your machine is your means of making a living.

 

[jdawgnoonan]

I have had great support experiences in the last year, and I know that they have made a few improvements to their processes recently that address the only complaint I would have had. Granted, if you really want excellent customer support from Apple it really helps if you have access to an Apple store.

 

[Darth Tulhu]

What’s a small number? Is 3 million a small number? Or is it rather large...

Where are these numbers coming from? What's their context?

I don't understand this post...
[doublepost=1556201002][/doublepost]

Or its evidence of better customer support. Maybe Apple Acknowledges a problem sooner than the competition does. I'm not saying the the keyboard isn't an issue, but it has nothing to do with customer service. If fact you can't have good customer service if nothing ever goes wrong.

It IS evidence of good customer service. And as long as you replace your computer every 4 years, and are comfortable with missing it for at least a day repeatedly, you can go feel free to buy it (personally, I wouldn't). However, this is irrelevant to the conversation my post refers to.

I was addressing the issue of people HERE dismissing that the keyboard issue exists and/or them painting it as rare.
[doublepost=1556201610][/doublepost]

You're really grasping here.

I never claimed that the issue was minor or major - simply that we don;t have the numbers. You're trying to take highly unreliable sources (lawsuits being filed, people complaining online) to form a conclusion the problem is widespread.

You literally have zero evidence to back your position. I haven't taken a position as to how common the issue is, just that nobody knows.

My position is that along with the so-called "unreliable sources" (in which your own statements fall into), the ONLY evidence we have one way or the other is Apple's repair program.

If the FACT that Apple recognizes the problem, puts their money where your mouth is, and offers a 4-year long free repair program for keyboard issues is not enough "reliable" evidence for you that Apple KNOWS the problem is widespread, then there is simply nothing left to discuss.

You ARE free to believe whatever you want.

 

[Black Tiger]

While their support May be great they have become increasingly stingy in warranty coverage. I distinctly remember having older charging cables replaced without them even checking warranty coverage when they inevitably wore out. I tried to get my iPhone X lightning cable replaced under AppleCare and the genius was adamant that it wasn’t covered under warranty. Perhaps this has always been the case, but then Apple needs to redesign these cables for durability.

 

[truthertech]

Wow... Just a week ago I was on with Apple support and the guy couldn't even figure out which country I was in... This after I provided my account info... nor was he able to provide any actual help. I was put on hold repeatedly. Once for upwards of 10-15 minutes. At the end, he provided a web address to Apple's support site for my country because he didn't know the out of warranty cost for the product.

But sure, best-in-class.

What? The survey company didn't base its results on your one anecdotal report??? That sure would have saved them a lot of time, money and effort.

 

[SeattleMoose]

My few experiences with Apple Tech Support/Repair have been excellent.

 

[Dave-Z]

What? The survey company didn't base its results on your one anecdotal report??? That sure would have saved them a lot of time, money and effort.

I know, right?

Not only that... there's this thread on a forum somewhere on the Internet about tech support and--if you can believe this--someone shared their own, personal tech support experience in it. Frickin' unbelievable.

 

[NufSaid]

Microsoft have support?

That is what I thought....I was unaware.
[doublepost=1556218336][/doublepost]The only better support I find than Apple is American Express - it is really rare in today's world.

Dell will regret the day they moved their support to India....I don't think they have fully shaken that yet.

 

[maflynn]

That is what I thought....I was unaware.

They sell computers so why wouldn't they have support ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[truthertech]

I know, right?

Not only that... there's this thread on a forum somewhere on the Internet about tech support and--if you can believe this--someone shared their own, personal tech support experience in it. Frickin' unbelievable.

It's not you sharing your personal experience, it's your comment deriding the survey's findings that Apple's support was best in class based on your one experience.

 

[Dave-Z]

It's not you sharing your personal experience, it's your comment deriding the survey's findings that Apple's support was best in class based on your one experience.

Please read all my posts in this thread. I've had multiple poor experiences with Apple. I'm sharing them because it's relevant to the thread.

 

[Tech198]

Microsoft have support?

Based on the fake scam calls, you wouldn't think they do.

I can do that too
Just because one person had a bad experience

Seriously, you might have had a bad one, might work to call again, nothing is 100%.

One person on call makes a big difference compared to who you talk to... changes the whole "Apple is BS" to "wow.. they're really good at this" argument when you get a difference agent.

 

[PickUrPoison]

Where are these numbers coming from? What's their context?

I don't understand this post...

Apple talks about “a small number of users” vs. a vast majority in their apology letter; you yourself referred to a “it's only happening to few users” trope.

So the question what is a small number and what is not is relevant. If I told you Apple has had to make upwards of 3 million keyboard repairs, some would consider that a rather large number. Others would think it not great but hardly a disaster. If you don’t have an opinion that’s fine.

 

[Junior117]

I expected as much from Apple. I expected Razer to be high up there as well (they're a pretty great company overall).

I'm surprised Microsoft is pretty low in that list, though. The Surface devices are pretty good in general (at least in my experience); I'd expect that their support would be just as great. :/

 

[Darth Tulhu]

Apple talks about “a small number of users” vs. a vast majority in their apology letter; you yourself referred to a “it's only happening to few users” trope.

So the question what is a small number and what is not is relevant. If I told you Apple has had to make upwards of 3 million keyboard repairs, some would consider that a rather large number. Others would think it not great but hardly a disaster. If you don’t have an opinion that’s fine.

Hmm, I think wires got crossed somewhere.

I'm of the position that the keyboard issues are widespread, and NOT insignificant, given that despite all hearsay on both sides of the fence Apple did issue an extensive repair program, especially after re-engineering the keyboard with the membrane "fix".

I disagree with those here that have been attempting to sweep the issue under the rug because their keyboard is not broken and/or they feel they must defend Apple for some reason or another.

Thus, I believe that anyone thinking of purchasing an MBP needs to take this into consideration and mitigate the consenquences as required and to they extent they deem necessary.

All that said, here's my personal opinion on the matter:

The keyboards suck, whether they get stuck or not, and are inferior to every single other laptop keyboard that Apple has put in their machines.

 

[PickUrPoison]

Hmm, I think wires got crossed somewhere.

I'm of the position that the keyboard issues are widespread, and NOT insignificant, given that despite all hearsay on both sides of the fence Apple did issue an extensive repair program, especially after re-engineering the keyboard with the membrane "fix".

I disagree with those here that have been attempting to sweep the issue under the rug because their keyboard is not broken and/or they feel they must defend Apple for some reason or another.

Thus, I believe that anyone thinking of purchasing an MBP needs to take this into consideration and mitigate the consenquences as required and to they extent they deem necessary.

All that said, here's my personal opinion on the matter:

The keyboards suck, whether they get stuck or not, and are inferior to every single other laptop keyboard that Apple has put in their machines.

I’ve read your opinion of the keyboard. I was interested in your opinion of whether 3 million keyboard repairs is a lot.

 

[Darth Tulhu]

I’ve read your opinion of the keyboard. I was interested in your opinion of whether 3 million keyboard repairs is a lot.

Yes I do. 3 million is a BIG number for repairs in my mind, especially when worldwide sales in a qtr for all Macs could hover in the 5 million range.

That's too many chances for mine to be messed up for my taste.

 

[avtella]

Dell placing #3 on that list makes me not trust this company's rating system, because Dell's tech support is an absolute joke. You're lucky to get phone support at all if you don't pay for their extended warranties, and even if you do, you get some mush mouth in BFE that sounds like he's talking on a $5 headset through a face mask. The people that operate their chat support are incapable of basic grammar, they misspell simple words and their concept of sentence structure is non-existent.

If you work in IT and deal with these dips****s on a regular basis like I do, you'll quickly realize that they are no better than HP, Lenovo, Acer, or any of the other crap heap budget laptop manufacturers.
Apple is light years ahead of the competition when it comes to product support.

I’ve actually had good experiences with Dell, in my experience at least the best, just complaining of a minor uneven core temp issue (worked to spec) they replaced my refurb 1080P 7567 ($700) with a $1,300 7577 4K and maxed out specs. They also had no problem warranty wise with the fact I had upgraded my laptop’s WiFi card and NVME SSD, they returned the upgraded parts to me along with the new laptop (2 Day shipping).

Plus almost every part is pretty easy to replace should anything go wrong post warranty, they provide service manuals and disassembly guides. Their corporate support is actually excellent as well. I mean the 7 series Latitudes come with default 3 years in home service if remote diagnostics are not fruitful.

Medtronic, a huge medical device maker for one uses Dell happily, my father, even brings many of the older Latitudes/Precisions for various work related database testing, they’re pretty well build never seen them fail as of yet even the heavily abused ones. Not sure what company you for in IT but our experiences have usually been pretty great, corporate and regular support has been excellent.

As for most “IT” service/support guys who do a lot of the basic stuff at least, ie imaging and hardware upgrades, I’ve found them to be not very knowledgeable about hardware or software in most of my encounters. I’m speaking about simple things like tweaking advanced WiFi driver settings to fix connectivity issues on certain adapters... Hopefully it’s better at your workplace.

HP however, I agree has terrible support. Yet in some places IT staff recommend them for being “reliable” for some damn reason even though they’re always the ones having issues.

When I do buy a MacBook this year though for personal use, I will definitely buy extended warranty because unlike Dell’s Latitudes and Precisions, it would be an expensive proposition to replace/repair most things outside warranty.

 

[The Clark]

12 years ago I asked HP for support on a brand new $129 printer and they treated me terribly unprofessionally. I returned the printer to the retailer, got my full refund, and vowed to never, ever, EVER purchase another HP product (anything from HP) for the rest of my life...and to also never recommend HP in any shape or form. To this day I still refuse to promote HP and all because someone on their phone told me I was wrong even though the outside of the box said "Windows XP Drivers Included".

I'm sure you've had quite an effect on their sales.