Technical Support for Apple Watch

[warburg]

Has anyone noticed how bad Apple's Technical Support for the Apple Watch is? I've had several almost unbelievably bad experience with apparently incompetent advisers. The last one was yesterday when my Series 3 gray Edition AW stalled on the OS 4.2.2 upgrade. After 3 hours of "Verifying" I called Apple Technical Support. The adviser put me through all sorts of maneuvers, including setting the phone on and off Airplane Mode repeatedly. He then advised me to let the watch continue to try upgrading all night and to call him this afternoon if the upgrade wasn't successful. He had no idea how I might repeat the upgrade process from the beginning and was planning to reset the iPhone. This morning, the "Verifying" process was continuing. I got the idea of shutting down the phone and the watch and then restarting them. This solved the problem. I had called Apple Technical support a few weeks ago, when my watch seemed to be losing battery power very quickly. Again, I was put through a complicated series of maneuvers that solved nothing. A poster on MacRumors casually noted that the AW loses battery power much faster if the iPhone is turned off than when it is turned on. This was the answer to my "problem." The technician never asked me if my phone was on or off. How can such incompetent people be technical advisors?

 

[Shirasaki]

Those technical supports know just enough from Apple to service regular customers. They are not equipped with enough knowledge to solve all kinds of weird issues. I had bad music sync experience with Apple Watch and photo sync experience with Apple Watch. My solution is to delete music from Watch and start over. Genius Bar guy knows nothing about it. Photo sync issue is solved by reducing the amount of photos I want to sync. Again, he does not know.

 

[44267547]

I have only had a contact Apple Watch support one time and they did an excellent job with the issue that I experienced. I spent approximately an hour on the phone with them and they were able to troubleshoot the problem and repair the issue, saving me a trip to the Apple Store.

 

[hexagenia]

I have found that there is a huge difference between Level 1 and Level 2 tech knowledge. I just called Apple this week where I was asking if there was a limit to the number of watches that can be used to automatically unlock a MacBook Pro. I was told, by the tech, that it was limited to 10, where she clearly confused AppleID device accounts on iTunes with what I was asking, which had nothing to do with iTunes. I did get an answer, but only after escalating to a Senior Tech. My experience for Level 1 definitely corroborates extremely low competence, to the point that i advised Apple in the post-call survey to take some of its cash horde and give an Apple Watch to its employees. Everyone would benefit.

 

[Shirasaki]

i advised Apple in the post-call survey to take some of its cash horde and give an Apple Watch to its employees. Everyone would benefit.

How could we expect a nice customer service experience if supporting staff does not even know how to use the product being served? Well, not always applicable but definitely applicable for Apple.

 

[warburg]

I have only had a contact Apple Watch support one time and they did an excellent job with the issue that I experienced. I spent approximately an hour on the phone with them and they were able to troubleshoot the problem and repair the issue, saving me a trip to the Apple Store.

Well, you were very fortunate, but you haven’t specified what the problem was and what they did to resolve it. They do spend a good deal of time with callers, sometimes too much I think.

 

[cynics]

I've never been "impressed" with Apple tech support at all because I try very hard to fix issues myself using forums and other resources. Right off the bat I'll need to be escalated 2-3 tiers of tech support before anyone even comes up with something I haven't tried.

However I have been very pleased with their patience and persistence to get the problem sorted out. Also I've been very happy to talk to tech support that their first language is the one I speak (not hating, but thick accents often cause unneeded frustration and a general disconnect). That said I would rather get the tech person that is actually able to fix the problem regardless of the language.

 

[44267547]

Well, you were very fortunate, but you haven’t specified what the problem was and what they did to resolve it. They do spend a good deal of time with callers, sometimes too much I think.

I was helped by two trained representatives who followed troubleshooting steps to resolve the issue. And It was a pairing related problem. Regardless, they spent in an inordinate amount of time to repair the problem and they were successful. My experience was opposite of yours.