What is Digg?143 Comments
- stacky, on 10/14/2007, -10/+70That was possibly the least informative, most generalising article I've seen on digg in like... a few days.
But still, there was nothing to the article other than 'Apple's customer service has probably gone downhill. What do you think?" - thermus, on 10/14/2007, -13/+56Actually, I've found Apple to be more responsive than ever to issues. After a recent shopping visit to an Apple Store, I was e-mailed a survey to rate my satisfaction with the experience. Not pleased by the long checkout lines and over-crowded store entrance, I let them know how I felt. Within two days, the manager of the store called me to personally apologize and asked if there was anything that he could do to make me happier with Apple.
Now, I'm sure I could have hit him up for a gift card or iTunes credit, but I was so impressed that they have a policy in place to deal with unhappy customers, that I didn't asked for anything. I just thanked him for giving me a call.
But these little things are what distinguish Apple from other companies, so an article bashing their customer service seems disingenuous. - pHr34kY, on 10/14/2007, -5/+35This article lacks content.
- MrPhultz, on 10/14/2007, -18/+47Apple tops PC Mag satisfaction survey:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,2184104,00.as ... - KezG, on 10/14/2007, -7/+27I had a problem with my MacBook and the guy at the Apple Store in Manchester sorted it in no time, no hassle, no fee (still in warranty)...
Customer support seems fine to me. Obviously they cannot please EVERY single customer ---- NO company the size of apple can do that. - Tomboys, on 10/14/2007, -15/+34I agree with the shout Spam! It is out of control. But I also agree with this. Apple's customer support has gone to hell. You know things are bad when you know more then tech support does.
- SuperSunny, on 10/14/2007, -10/+25What? They do a good job from what I've seen recently. None of my friends have had problems, and if any switchers need help, the Apple Store gladly helps and assists. So what's the deal here?
- Gnarrr, on 10/14/2007, -6/+17This is just another one of Steve Jobs' lemmings comments.
- ElectroBot, on 10/14/2007, -0/+9Actually NO company of ANY size can (please every customer).
There will always be a customer who wanted the item fixed yesterday (even though he brought it in today) for free and in such a way that it will work forever. All the while yelling at you or belittling you (the person who is trying to help them). - thermus, on 10/14/2007, -0/+9You miss the point entirely. If the story was about your bank's customer service, maybe you could have shared your nice story. If someone said their customer service was poor. My comment would be directed toward any company that personally responded to something unpleasant encountered during a customer's visit. Kudos to any company that understands the value of a repeat customer and not just that quarter's profits.
- FoxMcCloud1, on 10/13/2007, -1/+10I must say that recently was the first time I called in and kind of got stupid service. They were polite and took care of me, just had a few times of explaining the problem before I got to someone with an answer. They used to go right to the people that know exactly whats going on, mac experts. Now theres more operators to take care of bulk and lower ratio of experts. I hope they spend some more money on experts now that they are getting rich and stay true to their roots as hard as that may be.
And, please please please, no outsorcing to India. (sorry India) - McTim, on 10/14/2007, -5/+13Growing pains are certainly a new, newsworthy concept.
- inactive, on 10/14/2007, -6/+14PCMag sample 500 Apple users and more than 5000 Dell users. That survey is fatally flawed.
- inactive, on 10/14/2007, -9/+17The customer support is great if you live near an Apple Store. If you don't, you're basically *****.
- inactive, on 10/13/2007, -2/+9Its funny when you actually step out if the Apple distortion field how much more there is, cheaper, better products and better service.
Hell you can even pay for HP's service next day AT HOME package and come out cheaper then a comparable mac with 1 year "care" service. HP started offering that quick and good of service with servers because businesses dont take excuses
And sorry no HP/Compaq fan those are just the facts, Dell offers the same as well also because of top end server sales, that you can pay a little extra for and get the same for your laptop. - Dylson, on 10/14/2007, -2/+9No.
- Kazbaeden, on 10/14/2007, -0/+6Thank you for that little background introduction to Apple; I've never heard of them before and am now intend to learn more about their products.
A note to authors: write with your audience in mind.Crunchgear is a tech site and has countless articles on Apple. If by some off chance someone reading your article doesn't know about Apple, they're not your audience. But for the rest of us, it's just annoying and amateur. - MacParrot, on 10/14/2007, -1/+7Trolling douchebag much?
- whiteyMcBrown, on 10/14/2007, -1/+7I recently had a problem with an iTunes store purchase. I bought a game that would not work on my new iPod Classic (totally my fault.. they have sys requirements on the page). I received a personal email back, typed by some guy congratulating me on my new purchase and he refunded my money. He mentioned that he noticed a double purchase I had made and refunded me for that, too... Seriously.. that's pretty good service.
- OssianHanning, on 10/14/2007, -2/+7No.
- Tufriast, on 10/13/2007, -1/+6This article says nothing, and is total effing speculation with zero facts behind it. I realize there is an outcry from certain people about the iPhone, but the article does not mention one customer service related report or survey at all. Its just going off of buzz and speculation. *****.
- turpenine, on 10/13/2007, -0/+5agreed, I have yet to have a bad experience with apple support, and they don't have any non-native english speakers for phone support.
- kodax, on 10/14/2007, -0/+4Going to a dedicated brand store is an option that no one else even gives you. Its a big deal.
- kodax, on 10/13/2007, -0/+4This article fails for one simple reason. If you need support, you can take a short drive to something called an Apple store and talk face to face with a human being in a store that does nothing else but sells that brand. Every other computer brand makes you call some anonymous outsourced help line where you will be lucky to get a human on the phone after 30 minutes of robot automated voices and waiting with elevator music. And even then, the human is not very helpful.
Anyone who has been through the pain of dealing with on line automated support where you are at the mercy of some anonymous idiot that can hang up on you at any time knows this is BS. There is nothing like face to face human contact with the support people. Try getting one of these online support guys to give you their last name.
- KillTheRhythm, on 10/14/2007, -1/+5You're all idiots.
- Zippo, on 10/13/2007, -1/+5I don't know about tech support, but Apple's customer service is great. I had to have a part replaced just a couple weeks ago and was extremely pleased with how well and quick it was handled.
And to top it off, I spoke to someone who natively spoke English. - threemagic, on 10/14/2007, -2/+6>1: You can buy a 2 button mouse.. they work
>2 docking stations are to add ports, since apple laptops have all the ports built in, why are docking stations needed?
>3 This is retarded
>4 A) wake on lan and ILO support: I agree
B) ARD is far more useful than you make it out to be. Apparently you have never used it. - orbit1979, on 10/14/2007, -3/+7"Hardcore Mac users are notorious for “thinking differently” than PC users...."
Do they? - tesuji05, on 10/13/2007, -0/+4I've had pretty much the same experience, very happy with the customer support. Apple staff in the store went above and beyond the call of duty on many occasions for me.
- carpespasm, on 10/14/2007, -2/+6you shouldn't have to pay extra for fatal design flaws.
- ra1ndr0p, on 10/13/2007, -2/+6Must disagree with the article - I've had great customer service from Apple for as long as I've had Macs (and I was given my first one 20 years ago)
This morning, I had to go get my MacBook fixed due to a small cracking of the plastic where your right wrist rests. They literally fixed it on the spot, while I leisurely went to have lunch! Full article here:
http://www.thatcanadiangirl.co.uk/blog/2007/10/13/ ...
Give Apple some credit, they're doing better than the vast majority of manufacturers. - nace33, on 10/13/2007, -0/+4I just had a question regarding iWeb and personal domains. Did an online chat with an Apple rep and he helped me out in 10 min. Seems pretty satisfactory to me.
- DumDumDog, on 10/14/2007, -2/+5When don't we know more than tech support. We know more because we don't read scripts we use our brain.
- mfearby, on 10/14/2007, -0/+3What's wrong with right-clicking? By default everything should be left-clickable but the whole point of the right-click is to bring up additional functionality that's more obscure. By all means Apple can continue to make everything usable with just one button for most users, but depriving their products of a second mouse button is just plain stupid. Dummies don't have to click on it if they don't want to and if they want to live in their single-button world, then just click the left button! You know, the Windows world has been using two buttons for a very long time it hasn't caused me any problems!
- WiseWeasel, on 10/14/2007, -9/+12Learn to ask nicely, *****!
- th3wiz4rd, on 10/14/2007, -0/+3Yep, honest post gets dug down because it doesn't make Apple look good. It's indicative of Apple's attitude over the last few years (and exactly why some companies that have been pro mac in the past are now switching to PCs -- I work at one). Also, their tech support is ridiculously bad and our sales reps are nowhere to be found. And now the hundreds of thousands of dollars that would be going to Apple are now going to Dell/Microsoft...
The truth is, I'm tired of dealing with Apple. I'm tired of not being able to order parts without being an ACHT. I'm tired of being treated like a moron every time I call Apple tech support. I'm tired of their incompetent repair technicians having to come back over and over again for the same problems. Why the hell should I put up with their crap?
You like Apple? Give me one logical reason NOT to just give them the finger.
... just venting some frustration. - Pic0, on 10/14/2007, -10/+13they make you pay $200 extra so they can put a guy on payroll for 35 hours of customer service for you
- tubeblender, on 10/13/2007, -3/+6Sure, and when you want Dell customer service and don't live near a DELL "Kiosk" or fill in the blank your favorite PC mfr. co. , you're ***** too.
Who that manufactures their own computers gives you a place to go to for customer service? - kodax, on 10/13/2007, -0/+3The business week article is not much better but at least it admits that Apple has a sterling reputation for customer satisfaction. Other than that, both articles merely speculate that growing business may threaten this without any evidence or reason other than there are more customers. The linked article basically takes the business week article and makes a rather huge unsupported leap by claiming that quality has fallen. Its corporate spam at its worst.
- inkswamp, on 10/13/2007, -0/+3More customers means more complaints, and Apple has been gaining new customers at a crazy rate (if reports are to be believed.) Higher volume of complaints doesn't necessarily mean a higher percentage. Apple consistently tops the charts in Consumer Reports for customer satisfaction and hardware reliability in the computer business. If that slips next time around, then I might consider this, but as it is, I have nothing but a opinion piece with no supporting evidence cited to back up its claim.
In other words, you may as well have linked to a similar story on Jim Bob's Way Cool Bumfriggin' Blog. It's about as credible. - deadbaby, on 10/13/2007, -0/+3This article is seriously lacking substance. They're making the assumption that Apple's tech support is getting worse without offering any evidence to back up the claim. I haven't had to call AppleCare in more than a year so I wouldn't know. Maybe it is worse. How about some facts? It seems like most blog posts I read these days follow the same format:
Speculate on something, make something up, or use another blog as a source of a "rumor"
Give your opinion on the above as though it were an accepted fact - kindwarrior, on 10/14/2007, -3/+6Let's see if I can explain this to you:
Business week on October 22 decides to run a story about a report that came out at the beginning of August -- Why?
If you saw the study, which I did, then you saw that Apple even while loosing points in customer support was well above it's nearest competitor in each category. While Apple's computer sales have grown by almost 27% (26.8% -- 5.21% market share Oct 06, 6.61% Sept 07: which for the record is almost 10 times not 3 times the industry growth rate) over the last year, their installed base increased only about 6% -- this has not significantly stressed their support channels. What did change over this last year was the transition away from PowerPC chips to Intel chips. And while the transition has been much smoother than I ever imagined, it has not been without hickups. OS 9 can no longer run on new Macs (and I'm one of the people that got burned by that), There was a battery recall (not Apple's error BTW) and a few other negative User experience issues. Perhaps they'll become chronic, perhaps not. The Business week story could have read: "One year after one of the largest hardware transitions in history: Apple's customer satisfaction stays remarkably high", but of course that wasn't the point.
The point is the iPhone which, if it hasn't already, is going to easily exceed the boldest projections of 2 million sold by January 08 -- Apple's getting uppity, and the entrenched players don't like it, so they start ginning up a backlash movement. Apple's bricked their iPhones (how many: 10%? 5%? less than 5%? less than 1%? ding ding ding) -- Apple is draconian and heavy handed. Apple slashes the price on their iPhone (isn't this a good thing? NO!!! they screwed those people that were willing to pay more!!! --- $100 discount coupon? Bah!). Their campaign is gaining moment; All the little insecure PC weenies who hate the iPhone because of their own fractured egos and/or out of a false sense of panty-wasted moral relativistic equity ("everyone has their preferences, none is really better than the other -- it just depends") have jumped on board. Happy iPhone owners have learned to say things like, "I love my iPhone and even though Apple screwed me on the price it was worth it for that month of bragging rights". The campaign is working, the fires must be stoked: Calls are placed to sympathetic journalists appealing to the same character weaknesses that inflame the Mac haters; a suggestion is made, "hey, you know people aren't happy with Apple any more; There's a major backlash coming because of their over reaching and heavy handedness: did you happen to see that customer satisfaction report from early August? No. I'll send it to you -- It proves that Apple has lost interest in supporting it's customers". And the journalist plays along, partly aware he's being played partly, secretly, wanting to put ole smarty pants Steve Jobs, in his place and knock Apple down a peg or to. It proves, in his own little mind, that he has power too.
If, like me, you know what's going on, you either keep it to yourself or get labeled a flame bating Mac fan boy.
Oh well, I calls em as I sees em. - freakk123, on 10/13/2007, -0/+3Jabberwolf, there's no way you can deny that macs do have some things going for them, just like there's no way someone like me can deny that they have their share of negatives.
Otherwise, you're just being a bigger anti-apple fanboy (so to speak) than many of the apple fanboys, which, I think, is just as bad. - flux1, on 10/14/2007, -2/+4Indeed, but hey, its Apple, digg it up anyways! Article burried.
- cranium, on 10/13/2007, -10/+12My iBook lasted about one year before it encountered a class problem that has been killing iBooks worldwide. Did Apple want to cover that for me? No.
The way I see it, they ripped me off. I paid a premium price for inferior hardware and non-existent customer service.
I love OSX, but I'm done with Apple forever, they can go ***** themselves for taking customers for granted.
The HP laptop I replaced the iBook with is friggin' fantastic. - mfearby, on 10/14/2007, -0/+2Regarding 1: yes, you can go out and buy a 2-button mouse, but why can't Apple just ship a 2-button mouse where right-clicking is 100% predictable instead of some bizarre thing that requires more effort and thought and where a right-click sometimes ends up being a left-click because you didn't lean enough on the right-side of the mouse!
Regarding 2: Yes, docking stations *are* to add ports, but you are forgetting the other great benefit of a docking station, and that is to make it convenient for workers coming and going all the time and who don't want to have to reattach network cables, monitor cables, keyboard cables, and mouse cables each and every time they return to the office or have to leave to go home. With docking stations you simply put the laptop onto the docking station and press the ON button... et voilas: the laptop boots and you don't have to fiddle with all those cables. Astounding, huh? The overwhelming majority of Wintel laptops support docking stations but clearly Apple have opted to refuse to do so because it might look like copying or catching up? That's cutting off your nose to spite your face. If something is useful and the market demands it, then companies ought to cater to that demand or risk wallowing as a niche player, which is really where I suspect Apple prefers to be. The problem is your typical Mac Fanboy proselytising all the time saying how wonderful Apple products are but who are somehow ignorant of these glaring inadequacies! - BlueStarr, on 10/14/2007, -1/+3I've only had one or two bad experiences with Apple phone support but the problem was always resolved and at the end I hang up satisfied. I've been a Mac user for 10 years now. That is saying something.
- nunofgs, on 10/14/2007, -1/+3Here in Portugal, Apple has NO official store. We have a few resellers and that's it.
A few months ago, I went to exchange my battery (as it was covered by the battery exchange program). They took my battery, left me 2 weeks with no battery and when it finally got here, they charged me 15€ for shipping+handling of the battery.
Does that sound right to you? - freakk123, on 10/14/2007, -1/+3Well, my iPhone died at school, which for me is in the middle of Connecticut where there are no Apple Stores close enough for someone like me without a car to get to, so I called Apple and the next day got a box with a temporary replacement (yeah, $30, overpriced, true, but I needed a phone) and I just put my old iPhone in the box. Three days later, they shipped me a new iPhone and a box to return the temp in. Honestly, it was one of the most seamless customer support experiences I've ever had, and I've had my fair share.
I can remember the same thing happening back in the day before there was an Apple Store nearby my house in New York. So I'd say it's still pretty good, even if you don't live near a store. Though perhaps my experiences have been better than most.
Still though, the article seemed sort of unnecessarily sensationalist, so very befitting of Digg. - mfearby, on 10/14/2007, -0/+2"...I buy apple computers for the computer and the OS not for the keyboard and mouse. "
Good for you. I agree, but still, an irritating mouse out-of-the-box isn't encouraging.
"who uses a docking station? if you have a mac and need to hook it up to a PC, Mac or Network all you need is an ethernet cable or a firewire cable. you can do file, internet, printer, windows sharing, remote, right from a mac with ethernet."
Clearly, you have no idea what a docking station is for. Its main function is to make taking your laptop between two or more places a quick and trouble-free process. Let's say I prefer to use an external monitor, keyboard, mouse, lan connection, printer, and external storage device at work. Are you trying to tell me that Apple's solution for customers in this situation, having to take the laptop between office and home on a daily basis, is to have them disconnect and reconnect all six devices twice a day, five or six days a week? Nowhere did I say that a docking station is for connecting to Windows computers. If you're OK with mucking about with all those cables each and every day, good for you, but the real world uses docking stations, and until Apple get with the program, MacBooks and MacBook Pros are a laughing stock in the corporate world.
"how are those odd key strokes different OS's have different key commands just because you are not used to it does not mean it is odd. "
Mac OS is the *only* operating system I know of that does its own thing with these strange keyboard commands. Windows, Linux, and all Unixes uses normal keyboard commands. Mac does not. You'd think Apple would want to encourage converts by adding a simple preference pane to ease the pain of these silly keystrokes, but clearly, Apple prefers to keep its stock from rising too much further.
"well it is clear that you are windows person who may have used a mac, i would say you should keep using windows I hate Miller and Windows so i drink summit and use a Mac but it is fine if you like Miller and windows allot of people do hell they are two best selling thing in the USA. but if you are going to bitch about something why not try setting the hard drive ( and monitor if one is hooked up )to sleep at a set time of idle and have the computer never sleep it will basically go into sleep mode with out really going to sleep and when you call the computer by Lan it will spin up the drive just fine.
OR JUST GO TO ENERGY SAVER OPTIONS WAKE UP FOR ETHERNET NETWORK ACCESS
I have never had an issue with any of my macs not waking up with i access them over ethernet using my lan!"
I have two rooms full of Intel iMacs, both of which have a schedule to boot up at 8:00 AM. All will go to sleep after 15 minutes of inactivity, and will shut down at 11:00 PM at night. Despite having the latest ARD clients installed and the latest ARD program installed on my admin Mac, waking up a Mac in sleep mode is about as reliable as winning money on a horse! Seriously. I've chatted to and fro on the Apple support forums and basically haven't gotten too far since most Mac people seem to think that walking to the building myself to wiggle the mouse is the answer!
The thing is, if it weren't for the things about the Mac that I've enumerated here, I would find the Mac a very nice machine. It's just that the Mac has some warts that Apple refuse to deal with in a way that a) won't piss off loyal Mac users by default and b) provides some recourse for people like me that want it. I'm not asking Apple to make the default Enter key behaviour to open the file; I'm quite happy having to tick a box to enable it, but Apple just won't do it. And for that reason I can't use a Mac even though they are very nice, quick, and reliable in every other respect. -
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