New Mac owner with trouble from the start

[hulugu]

Re: New card works ...

Originally posted by Coach
Everything came up just fine this morning on a cold boot so it appears the video card was the culprit

Good luck with it. Do you feel Apple helped you, are you satisfied with your experience?

 

[Coach]

I think some people representing apple helped me. A couple either said they had never heard of the issue or said there was just a temporary glitch while others acknowledged the issue and took strides to fix it quickly.

I guess I have a little bit of a bad taste in my mouth for the amount of money I paid for this system and the time and number of calls it took for someone to step up and make sure it got fixed.

 

[hulugu]

Customer service

Originally posted by Coach
I think some people representing apple helped me. A couple either said they had never heard of the issue or said there was just a temporary glitch while others acknowledged the issue and took strides to fix it quickly.

I guess I have a little bit of a bad taste in my mouth for the amount of money I paid for this system and the time and number of calls it took for someone to step up and make sure it got fixed.

One of the things I've found helpful, though it can be time-consuming, is to write-down the names of the people who you have talked to. If someone is especially difficult or better yet helpful tell a manager or someone in charge. This makes it so the really lousy people get bad reviews and the great people get promotions, raises, bonuses. It's also a way of forcing accountability; it's too easy to be unhelpful when you're anonymous.
The amount of money you spent shouldn't matter, you should be treated well and your problem should be fixed whether you bought a low-end iBook on an educational discount or a 2.0Ghz G5 w/ everything.
I've personally had very good luck with Apple when my TiBook paint started to disintigrate; not only did it look like hell, but it had scratched the screen. I called Apple and they agreed to fix everything, so now I've got a TiBook that looks brand-new with a new backing, screen, screen bezel, front face, etc. They replaced about 70% of the outside of my machine and it took only a few days: sent out on Thursday, received on Monday. I called and spoke to a manager to let her know how good the customer service was and she told me they would let the rep know. Hopefully he got something out of fixing my problem.

[edit syntax]

 

[rhodescholar]

For those who deny that apple has a QC problem these days is simply wrong. Lets go thru the lineup of known defects in apple products released:

1-8500/180: known motherboard defects
2-performa 6200: broad defects
3-ipod mini: headphone jack connectivity
4-power mac g5 sleep issue (see the apple forums, g5 section for hundreds, if not thousands of posts on it)

Dont get me wrong, i am not trolling here, and have used macs for 15 years now for music development. But apple knows it has a captive audience, one that is willing to tolerate a very high amount of abuse, so imho apple has spent decreasing amounts of effort to produce products that are both well-designed AND well-built.

I have budgeted $ 5,000 ready to drop on my new g5/2.5, but until sleep and other issues are addressed, i will stand fast with what i have now.

 

[rhpenguin]

. I wish the people bitching about how Apple sucks would go get themselves a PC from Gateway or something that breaks after 2 hours of use. See what average tech support is like.

I dont mean to troll, but i work for HP and am a casemanager/Sr Support Rep. While yes, i do have a lot of monkeys working for me, there are a lot of good agents too. Also keep in mind, if your not very discriptive of your problem or the agent cant understand you as a person theyre not going to be able to help. Be as clear and use PROPER TERMINOLOGY when calling. Also dont bitch and whine,,, That will just make me not want to help you.

Dont knock the techsupport just because its from a pc company.

One last note... every Apple product ive bought has broke atleast once.. Waiting on the iPod to die again.

 

[Lord Blackadder]

Service

I hope you've got everything squared away coach, and I also hope that the G5's future performance will make up for this unfortunate incident.

Because of the size of computer companies like Apple/Dell/Hp etc it is impossible to completely prevent customer service issues and qualtity control issues. EVERY computer I have ever owned has suffered from hardware or software issues at least once, with one exception (an Apple IIe, but that's hardly relevent here!). With that said, I would say that I would would put Apple's quality control and customer service up against anyone's, even though I have experienced ups AND downs.

At work I am constantly dealing with PC vendors (and occasionally Apple). My experience is that good people do good work, whether it be at HP, Apple, Gateway, or what have you. By the same token, idiots and buttheads cause problems, regardless of the company they work for. There's one born every minute!