It's not about profits. It's about offsetting the costs for thousands (literally over 7000) available at peak times, most whom make a decent, if not good, wage.
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iCloud is always an exception. iTunes Match... I'm honestly not sure.
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Apple to Charge Fees for Out-of-Warranty Chat Support
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It's not about profits. It's about offsetting the costs for thousands (literally over 7000) available at peak times, most whom make a decent, if not good, wage.
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iCloud is always an exception. iTunes Match... I'm honestly not sure.
Ahhh. Not paying $19 to talk to some front-line girl with a 3 ring binder filled with canned troubleshooting lines. Whenever I utilize my $200+ AppleCare I have to talk to 3 people before I get someone on the phone who doesn't ask me if I've updated my software or rebooted recently. I only buy AppleCare for the hardware protection. I hate when I feel like I know more about the product than the customer service rep does. Infuriating.
You sound like a jerk. First of all, while there are many dumb people (including customers!), most advisors I know care and are pretty smart. Second, there are no "canned lines". Period. What do you want when troubleshooting iOS? Restart, reinstall, restore. That's generally all you can do. CPU is a different matter, but there are execellent support personnel.
Hey, if you know so much, why are you contacting them anyway?
If you have ever called their Applecare folks, you would know that a google search is WAY more productive. There is NO chance I would pay to speak to their "geniuses" Its laughable.
Yes, and we also get to pay for each hour we charge our device. The cap is 72 hours before you have to buy a new device.
It's still about money in the scenario you have described.
In the scenario I described I said "profits", not "money". Breaking even is not the same as making profits.
I gave up on phone support years ago. I was setting up a first generation Airport Extreme. I knew absolutely nothing about wireless networking. The person on the other end of the call knew less than that. I was put on hold several times while the rep asked a higher level person. My request to speak with the other person was denied. The call was a waste of time.
A poster on Apple Discussions gave me step by step instructions. The printout is still with the very scant documentation for the AE. AE is still good and working.
Too bad Apple stuff doesn't just work like that anymore.
It would be a better world if people used Google first. All the information is free on Apple's support site.
When I actually have to call AppleCare, it's for an issue way more complex than the standard "Safari won't close! Help!" type stuff. Those sort of issues can be resolved with a simple Google search 9 times out of 10. Usually my issue requires me to go through 2-3 people before I can speak to someone who actually knows the guts of OS X or the Mac's hardware itself. I've even talked to a senior rep who said, "Yea, we have a front line of people who are equipped to handle only easy stuff but you have to ask to speak to a "real"
technical person." I wish there was a separate number to get past the front line right from the start.
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Doesn't apple realize they are as successful as they are for not doing things like this?
If they think that this will lead to more revenue, I would say they are mistaken. People have gravitated to apple for their awesome service.
If they think that this will lead to more revenue, I would say they are mistaken. People have gravitated to apple for their awesome service.
Unless you bought APPL @700 there is a good chance you made more than your fair share for clicking your mouse on the buy button.
Alienating customers is not a good way to move the share price up. This is unfortunate about chat support. I've never used chat support and I do have a few shares. I think this is not a good idea. Good will and word of mouth referrals are invaluable. Apple seems to be losing it's way. So sad to see.
Been to a doctor recently? A decision tree is what each uses, whether it comes out of a binder or from experience. (Soon those for medicine may be refined to the point that they will eliminate some of the need to go to the doctor's office.)
And once that AppleCare policy expires, how do you propose to pay for your aid?
I remember calling a couple years ago about a router issue. The guy looked me up, found I bought an iphone recently, and said that meant I was covered for all my apple products. In 15 minutes he helped me re do my entire home network and fix my issues for zero dollars I told everyone I knew about it and how they should go Mac. I called a couple months ago about a simple keyboard sync issue I just couldn't resolve and after being transferred to 3 different people, I was offered a fix for a fee.
Times have changed. Microsoft/Dell 2.0
Times have changed. Microsoft/Dell 2.0
Actually it isn't really that horrible. They are trying to encourage folks to get Apple Care. And you can still go into stores and get questions asked etc for free.
Many companies have been charging phone, chat and diagnostic fees for out of warranty stuff for ages.
And this is still just a rumor. For all we know it's completely untrue. Or only a half truth. Remember the rumors of some kind of yearly fee to get questions answered for all your products. Perhaps that is true and that will cover the whole phone and chat issue. Only other cost might be hardware costs if you don't have Apple Care.
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Or this was one of those ideas he had before he died that is just now falling into place.
Who knows. certainly not a bunch of slubs on a website, almost all of which have never been in the same state as Steve Jobs, much less in the same room or have a clue what he was up to or what ideas he had tossed onto the table
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There is a fine example. You can't go to a Microsoft store and ask a question without a fee. That's the standard of service. Apple was always an outlier. But they still have to pay someone's salary to do that chat.
When you are making a profit and cut costs, you tend to increase profits. Is it worth their while to provide free support for out of warranty products? They have decided no, so they will charge for that service. They will still be paying those CS reps, only now Apple will get something in return instead of providing the service for free.
this is a RUMOR. It hasn't happened.
Contrary to some folks belief, 9to5mac is not Apple. Just because they say something is going to happen doesn't mean it will. Yes it might be something someone proposed but for all we know Cook said hell no to it. And that site screen shot might be fake.
Until Apple actually does it how about folks put down the torches and the pitchforks.
This is how it's always been. I just click Request an Exemption and the chat rep doesn't say a thing about it hahaha.
As was pointed out by someone else, Steve Jobs allowed for charging folks for phone support. Which was not so long ago the same ilk as chat support, i.e. folks screaming it should be free.
Many places like MS, Best Buy etc charge you at least $10-20 just to run a simple diagnostic test on your stuff. Often prepaid, non refundable and not credited to any repairs. Apple in their stores charges you nothing. And despite saying those appointments are 10-15 minutes long they don't time you and toss you when your time is up. You could be there asking questions or whatever for hours. Sure they might 'multitask' here and there but they won't kick you out or charge you for going over your time.
If anything perhaps this fee is to get folks to stop calling or starting chats for mundane crap they should be able to figure out themselves, google for or is actually a question for someone else like their ISP. If the issue is my Earthlink email isn't coming in cause I forgot my password I shouldn't be calling Apple anyway, and yet folks do it all the time (same with going in the stores) cause 'i use it on my iPad' suddenly makes it an Apple issue