Really!?
What??
Apple in fact leads the industry in customer service and satisfaction.
I will have to disagree with this statement. Firstly, let me just say that I love my Mac and the system (Snow Leopard). BUT Here are some of the incidents I have experienced (I am sorry for the length, I tried to keep it short):
>I tried to inform them about Educational online shop facility not working properly (blank screen after choosing my institution via my workplace network). I've made 3 phone calls (I've actually made an effort to call them 3 times), nobody could say something along the lines "thank you for noticing this I will report this to our technical team". All they did was trying to sell me mac and all of them said they do not have a technical team nor they can do anything about the problem. One of them said there have been a few similar reports by different people. It took them a week to sort this out.
>refund for unused Applecare (my old laptop was stolen - damn burglars). ongoing issue. Dear Lord! You would think that it's a straightforward process. Apply the refund for the unused service (on a time basis) and credit the card used at the time of purchase. No! it's not for Apple. I've spend 3 hours so far on the phone. I've been transferred numerous times to different people, spoke to 2 "senior" people - about the refund(!). Waiting times until someone picks up the phone are around 5-10min plus waiting during the call while they type or process whatever they type/process. So, during the initial 2h call, I was being transferred 3 times I ended up with a "senior" person. It took her 1h to process the refund. After 2 weeks, no money on my account. Called them and they said they don't refund Mastercards(!). They didn't even call me to verify this. They never said that before. They had my phone number. When I mentioned the waiting time (until someone picks up the phone) to their customer services person, she said they are busy, I acknowledged and said maybe more resources need to be deployed. She said they have enough resources(!), I said that if they did, the waiting time would be shorter. I might not be an expert but a good customer services person would at least say something along the lines "we apologise sir for your inconvenience, I will pass your comments to my supervisor", instead she was very argumentative and ignorant. Eventually she passed me to customer relations person - who appeared to be her manager in "technical" issues not a complaints department. By the way, try to find complaints email/link on their website. Good luck. I don't believe they are lucky enough to have all customers joyful and 100% satisfied. Two emails I send complaining about their services ended up unanswered.
>when I called them regarding my stolen laptop, the person I spoke to although very sympathetic never advised me I can claim a refund for my unused Applecare.
>OS X Lion replacement programme. I am eligible to get the new system for free since I purchased my mac recently. hah it took them 10 days to come up with the code. Their website did not work properly for a day or two so I called them. Customer services unhelpful. And the whole process is ancient i.e. you have to submit your invoice in .jpg not the format they provide you .pdf. WHY!? where is the user friendliness, and simplicity that Apple praise itself. Later I regretted getting OS X Lion - I personally think it's a step backwards from SL.
These are just a few examples that happened in the last 4 months (!) Of course, along the way I was amazed by their lack of competence, ignorance and being unapologetic. Not really pleasant experience.
Anyway, to sum up. Hardware - top notch. I recently converted from PC and will never look back. Amazing. But I just hope that I will never have to deal with their Customer Service again. It's definitely not what you would expect from the company that sells itself as premium or top of the range. I've dealt with all sort of Customer Service people but Apple is the worse I am afraid.
