This is a sad af time. As a fellow SR person who just got dumped on, hope you find something better than this. They've been telegraphing this for a year or more and explains why the entire thing has been a sewer lately. I hope the person who "ran" your post meeting breakout room was at least able to try to pretend to be respectful or interested. The lady who ran mine was looking at her phone and had nothing to say but "uh." Absolute trash.
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Apple Plans to Stop Providing Customer Support on Twitter and YouTube
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I thought MR was the main channel for support.
This is a huge mistake IMO. This forum is really helpful to troubleshoot less frequent issues
Yeah, it's mostly garbage over there. A lot of inept and/or angry self-appointed gatekeepers and a lot of lazy general purpose copy and paste troubleshooting steps. I stopped using it years ago, and get much better answers here, or sometimes at StackExchange or Reddit.
It looks like they are determined to make the Apple Support app the only way to get tech support. I get this. Apple, like many companies, is driven by numbers and statistics. If they can centralize support into one place then doing numerics will be much easier. It could be that simple. Most of the people who were doing the other services will get new jobs, according to the article. So it's not strictly budget.
It sucks there will be less options for tech support. Trying to reach companies by email/phone is a pain, and not everyone has access to an Apple store.
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This is likely due to X/Twitter's escalating API costs. I work in this area, and well aware of the challenges in dealing with them right now.
I understand what you're going through. I was a biomedical engineering tech for 18 years when my hospital decided to fire my director and merge us into the Engineering department.($60K saved) Then they outsourced us to another hospital (Administration said to us literally "You don't work for us anymore. You work for these people" and they walked out.) The other hospital was dicking around with the books and my old hospital fired them...which meant my position evaporated. So after 28 years at the same place I was out on the street with 10 weeks pay and healthcare. I didn't let the door hit me on the ass on the way out.
Best of luck. Maybe an IT department. They need troubleshooters.
X GON GIVE IT to ya
I heard the rates they are charging companies for access to tools to provide support on X is outrageous. They really are just killing off any reason to use their platform every week.
I heard the rates they are charging companies for access to tools to provide support on X is outrageous. They really are just killing off any reason to use their platform every week.
I don't think I've ever used Twitter for customer support with Apple since I have r/Apple and here for simple issues along with just Apple in general having great support thru the main resources from them directly. Having said that, that was one of the best uses of Twitter and it's helped a lot over the years. Just had an issue resolved by Riot Games, had to fix something in my account and my tickets were going into a black hole, tweeted em and had it fixed by the next day. Sucks to see em get rid of options but at least they'e no slouch in customer service regardless, still confident in their ability to resolve issues fast despite this decision.
Is there an official name for "formerly known as tweets"?(In Billy Joel’s voice
Still Twitter tweets to me.
This.
Also, the Apple Support Community these days is full of people who do similar: obvious beginner level troubleshooting. Rarely, if ever, scope for deep-dives, support for advanced users, or opportunity to discuss fundamental issues that can’t be solved with standard troubleshooting.
What's Twitter/X .. oh yeah.. I forget that still exists..though a billionaire tried to destroy it by spending his daddies diamond money.. that he got from stealing the board seat from a company that he doesn't do anything in but push people to exhaustion to make him richer..
Chat based support is useless, good move by Apple 👏
Apple is planning to eliminate social media support advisor roles across Twitter, YouTube, and the Apple Support Community website starting later this year, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter. When this change takes effect, customers will no longer be able to receive support from an Apple employee on these platforms.
Starting October 1, the @AppleSupport account on Twitter will no longer provide human replies to customers who send direct messages, one of the sources said. Instead, the source indicated that customers who message the account will receive an automated reply outlining other ways that they can contact Apple to receive assistance.
In addition, the sources said Apple will no longer provide technical assistance to customers in the comments section of YouTube videos uploaded to the Apple Support channel, and the paid Community Specialist role will be eliminated for the Apple Support Community, an online discussion forum where customers can receive help.
Apple is offering hundreds of affected employees the opportunity to transition to a phone-based support role in the company, but some advisors are unable to or unwilling to make the switch, the sources said. Apple is not allowing employees to switch to another chat-based support role in the company unless medically necessary, which has caused anger and frustration for some members of the social media team, one of the sources said.
Employees will receive training to provide phone support, and the transition is expected to be completed by November, one source said. They added that those who do not wish to work on the phones were told they would need to explore work outside of Apple.
Apple has offered customer support on Twitter since 2016. Last year, the social media platform was controversially acquired by billionaire Elon Musk, and it has since been renamed to X. In a meeting with employees this week, the sources said Apple justified its plans by explaining that many customers prefer phone-based support.
Apple did not immediately respond to our requests for comment. This story will be updated if Apple provides any information.
Article Link: Apple Plans to Stop Providing Customer Support on Twitter and YouTube
Time to learn a new skill....talking to people or leave 😊
The post you responded to literally said the phones were where most of them started. Phone support is commonly entry level. So 1.) why would this be considered a new skill if it’s the job they started with, and 2.) what’s with the smiley face after telling them to return to a crappy entry level position “or leave”?
Never had one issue in 10 years with phone support, the call back is always within 2 min
I can get behind removing support from the social media platforms but why do they need to pull support from the official Apple Support site? Are those customers too inconvenient?
You clearly missed the part where they said they started off in phone support and worked their way up to social media support. They said it typically takes 3-4 years ANSWERING CALLS before someone can earn that sort of promotion. Which makes this a downgrade for those who worked hard and stayed committed all those years.
"...explore work outside ..." I hate this lingo so much.
The Apple Support app is more convenient has all you devices and info if it’s under warranty or not