9 ms·

That was literally my thought. Apple doesn't have the best customer service ever, but it's pretty decent and people that have warranties seem to leave happy. a

by tamcap 10y ago

That was literally my thought. Apple doesn't have the best customer service ever, but it's pretty decent and people that have warranties seem to leave happy. a) if the author speaks the truth (and I have no reason to believe otherwise) that the was never dropped - Google should fix it. That much is obvious. Now, the b). b) C'mon Google - you know the author is a techie / twitterer / reviewer - of all the people to annoy with customer service, is a person like that really the good choice? This incident clearly exposes non-positive elements in their customer support culture.

WhitneyLand 10y ago
>Apple doesn't have the best customer service They don't? Who does then? Now if you want to say they're not perfect and they've had their problems, I would agree with that.
- ghshephard 10y ago
  If you have a desktop computer, and particularly if you have a Server, Dell was pretty phenomenal (though I presume the same model was followed by HP as well). They will come on site, and, if you have an expedited warranty, they will come on site same day, sometimes within a few hours. When I ran IT, it was great to put a call into them, run through a bit of online troubleshooting, and then have them dispatch (separately for some odd reason) Parts and Labor to resolve the issue. Apple experimented with on-site support for a while, but it never really went anywhere. I guess they want you to come into their stores. On the flip side, Apple Service is so good that now our IT organization just tells their employees if they have any issue, just go to the Apple Store and work with them directly. So, something to be said about that. And, it's getting to the point that almost all of the major cities I travel too have some kind of Apple Authorized repair - even if they don't have an Apple Store yet.
  - massysett 10y ago
    > Dell was pretty phenomenal If you had enterprise-grade equipment. Their consumer support was absolutely horrible.
    - garrettgrimsley 10y ago
      I used to repair Dell consumer equipment at my job, and Dell Complete Care was hands down the best warranty out there.
    - kabdib 10y ago
      Dell Enterprise support is still highly variable, depending on the tech you land with. I've had to involve my sales contacts several times when techs wanted to do absolutely crazy things to hardware that was obviously dead. You can self-certify and manage your own component replacements, which works from small to mid scale. We do this for about 1,000 servers and it works pretty well; no phone calls where you roll the dice for quality of the tech, and I like frobbing hardware from time to time, it's a nice change from hacking C++ or PHP . . .
- jwilcoxson 10y ago
  I think Apple is pretty much the king of consumer level support.
  - Hydraulix989 10y ago
    I've read some pretty horrifying stories about Apple (this person had a cracked screen, Apple bricked the phone while attempting to repair it, replaced it behind his back, then charged him 3x -- they also have a required replacement device "security deposit" you must pay up front in order to even get them to attempt a repair): https://www.aaron-gustafson.com/notebook/apple-support-honeybadger/ https://www.aaron-gustafson.com/notebook/apple-support-honey... There's a reason why third-party repair shops like Rossmann Group exist and make a killing doing component and board level repairs on iDevices.
  - krzyk 10y ago
    I think that Amazon is best with their Kindle support. You break a Kindle and they send you a new one for free (if it is under the 1 year warranty) even internationally.
- pingec 10y ago
  From my experience, it's Logitech.
  - kps 10y ago
    I'm still angry at Logitech for deliberate anti-support of my Spaceball 5000. The driver handles it fine, but has to be manually tricked into tolerating ‘obsolete’ models.
- dbg31415 10y ago
  Costco - Best return policy on the planet. But anything confidently, return anything no questions asked. Solid support line too. Fry's - Knowledgeable service for consumer goods and online price matching. Apple Stores are full of pretty idiots who love to make you wait. Dell - Enterprise hardware, and support is great. Apple phone support is painful, if turning it on and off again doesn't help you are out of luck unless you have Apple Care and can wait a week for a replacement. EDIT: Buffalo - Great call line. People on the other end know their stuff.
  - dbg31415 10y ago
    I really hate Apple Stores... wanted to go on a bit of a longer rant here... I hate the physical stores, I hate the App Store. 1) Lost my power cord while traveling, so I thought I'd jump into the Apple Store and pick up a new one. Should be an in and out thing... took 1.5 hours of me just waiting around the store for them to sell me a power cord. This was in Sydney. Once I actually got to talk to someone, it still took 20 minutes. So painful. "Genius" is Apple for happy little idiot. 2) Tried to buy 8 laptops for a dev team. Bought them all online, went to pick them up... credit card cleared, no errors or messages on the website. Get to the store, "We're sorry, Sir. We can't give you more than 3 laptops per day." Uh? So you want me to come back once a day for 2 more days to pick up these laptops? "Yes Sir, that's our policy." It took a call to some regional corporate sales clown to get them to hand me 8 laptops the same day I paid for them. 3) Every try and roll out software to a team using the App Store as a source for any of that software? Is it the company Apple Account? Is it their Apple Account? Which account has the stupid software licenses bound to it, and how do I set it so I can use the company Apple Account to install the software, but not leave my master password for the company saved on their computer... I don't want to have to give them that password just so they can keep their system up-to-date... rather they just log in and expense software... nope, it's a cluster trying to keep it all updated once you have more than one account providing software. Apple does not care in the slightest about corporate users. I should have some sort of provisioning interface that lets me grant rights to use software licenses I own to their personal accounts... that's probably not pretty enough for Apple though.
    - 10y ago
- kbutler 10y ago
  When I had a motherboard issue with a dell laptop, Dell sent a representative to my home office to take it apart, clean it, and replace the motherboard. I've also had laptops and monitors replaced by other companies on a "we'll send you a replacement, you send the defective one back in that box with this prepaid shipping label, and thanks for buying our products" basis. I haven't heard of that from Apple.
  - mrbill 10y ago
    They USED to do something similar. When the G5 iMacs had problems with bad capacitors on the motherboards, Apple would send you the replacement midplane with swap instructions, along with a box to return the old one in. I took pictures of the process: https://www.flickr.com/photos/mrbill/albums/1340761 https://www.flickr.com/photos/mrbill/albums/1340761 They eventually switched to "take it to the local Apple store or mail it in".
- georgyo 10y ago
  Without a doubt Dell has much better customer focus for technical people. The 4 year support contact w/ accidentally costs the same as 4 years of apple care, but Dell's covers everything except lost and wore down batteries. Apple requires that you book an appointment at one of their stores, go there, wait on line anyway because there are people who don't want to book online, have someone who can't fix hardware problems look at it, and then say they'll take it but you must give them your file vault password first. Dell on the other hand after ten minutes of hardware troubleshooting on the phone comes on site with replacement parts. If they can't fix it they send it back for you, and you can request that they give you the hard drive in the machine before they send it. It's very excellent.
  - X86BSD 10y ago
    Apples main audience is not technical people. There is your first mistake. So comparing apples support for non technical people to dells technical oriented people support is flawed.
    - akiselev 10y ago
      Dell makes it easy to tell the phone/chat support person that you know what you're doing but it doesn't matter how technical you are. A Dell contracted tech will come to your house and replace the parts right in front of you within a few business days. A non technical person just has to spend more time going through the troubleshooting checklist.
    - paulddraper 10y ago
      Dell's main audience is also non-technical people.
  - fastball 10y ago
    AppleCare does cover worn out batteries though... I also feel like you are comparing Dell's enterprise support to Apple's general customer support...
    - akiselev 10y ago
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- thenomad 10y ago
  Herman Millar. "My chair's seat fabric has torn a bit. Is there anything you can do?" "When did you buy it?" "Erm, around 6 years ago, I think." Checks records "No problem, an entire replacement seat will turn up in a truck tomorrow. We'll fit it and leave your chair good as new. Have a nice day, sir."
  - bshimmin 10y ago
    Yeah, this. I bought a Herman Miller chair from a company that ceased to exist not long afterwards and, several years later, Herman Miller still cheerfully sent me a replacement armrest when I phoned up to say I'd managed to damage it whilst moving office. I was deeply impressed. I understand that Barbour, the wax jacket company, are fairly incredible when it comes to customer service too. (Nothing has ever gone wrong with my jacket so I've yet to put this to the test.)
  - morganvachon 10y ago
    Indeed. I have a backpack made by Tumi, it was my brother's bag from around 2001 or so. When he passed away in 2005 I inherited it, and a few years ago I finally noticed it had a little RFID tag and barcoded serial number embedded in it. I went on their website and looked it up, he had never registered it. So I registered it and found that it has a lifetime warranty, even though they stopped making that model years ago, and if it ever has a defect they will fix it or replace it with an equivalent bag. That's some damn fine customer service right there, and it's a shame Google's support is falling on its face when compared to furniture and backpack companies. This article is one more piece of news that makes me glad I excised Google from my life almost completely (I haven't found an alternative to my Nvidia Shield TV yet, but I'm looking).
    - Hydraulix989 10y ago
      Well, with furniture and backpack companies, the tolerance (or "forgiveness") for user error is a lot higher. If you accidentally drop your backpack, it doesn't have a screen or anything that shatters and requires a $150 part replacement. You can't even drop furniture in day-to-day use, really. Moreover, your backpack doesn't have a battery or anything that slowly but surely degrades over time anyways with a meager five-year lifespan. I can't imagine too many ways that a backpack or piece of furniture can become accidentally damaged by "user error." Remember, so many people try to misrepresent their own mistakes (perhaps because they didn't understand what happened or they didn't realize it was their own fault) as product defects that the phone manufacturers all had to add things like internal liquid sensors to their devices. On another note, many of my non-technical friends conflate Android OS software problems with device defects (e.g. "my phone died" actually meant that they had 300 running processes because they never learned how to close running apps on Android -- which to be fair is a PRETTY buried feature that doesn't lend itself well to user discovery; the number of people I see that don't realize they have to manually close apps on their Android phone is shocking). It's probably the reason there are so many ways to buy "refurbished" devices. Needless to say, if Apple or Google started honoring a lifetime warranty, they'd lose a lot of money pretty quickly.
- jasonlotito 10y ago
  In the last 5 years, I've had better customer service from Dell then Apple. In fact, in one day, I deal with both Apple and Microsoft customer service, and Microsoft won, hands down. I'm not going to pretend that Apple's customer service is horrible, but I can safely say that they aren't special anymore. Maybe I've just been incredibly unlucky, but simply put, their customer service is lackluster at best. Edit: Just to be clear, this is all consumer level support.
  - Kipters 10y ago
    Same as my experience. I've had four awesome experiences with Microsoft support. 1. Microsoft Band, a month after its warranty expired (bought in the USA), they still replaced it for free because of plastics wear, a common issue for that version 2. GF's Surface RT: faulty touch screen 1 year and half after she bought it, replaced for free, no questions asked, they even sent the replacement before I shipped the faulty one 3. GF's Lumia 925: she thought the pictures taken by the back camera were yellow-ish, she got it replaced with another brand new 925 for free. Six months later we bricked it trying to install a Windows 10 Insider Preview, replaced for free with a Lumia 830 4. My Lumia 1520, sent it in for repair because the battery was wearing out (it lasted a little more than a day instead of 1 and half/two), got a Lumia 950 XL instead A friend of mine also got his Surface Pro 3 replaced for free.
    - j3FF3ry 10y ago
      Did they ask to hold the full retail value of the device for the advanced replacement? Because when I was having issues with my surface book they asked me to send it in. At that time I couldn't be without the device and I asked for an advance replacement. At that point they wanted to hold the full retail amount until they received the new one. I went ahead and did it but I struggled since it was not a small purchase price. I received the replacement and sent the defective unit back. Expecting the hold to be released with in 2-3 business days after they received the defect unit. Nope. They ended up holding the money for 15 business days. I don't know if I'll ever buy something Microsoft again.
      - 10y ago
- stickydink 10y ago
  Sennheiser. I had a pair of reasonably expensive (~$250) headphones and the left ear went a week after my 2 year warranty expired. I knew it was basically just the cable (which was detachable), since it worked with a spare. But the official cable has an angled, custom fit and so it sits flush. I filled in an online form, printed the pre-paid label, dropped it off at UPS. Within a week, no questions asked, a brand new pair showed up in the retail box (with another box, set of batteries, extension cables). I've always found returns to manufacturers a huge pain in the ass, this was the first that wasn't.
  - harigov 10y ago
    I had an entirely different experience. I had a similarly priced Sennheiser headset and they were great. I had the exact same issue as well with headset's left speaker stopped working couple of weeks after my warranty expired. I called them up and they said they cannot do anything and I will have to a buy a new one. In the end, it turns out that a connection got loose so I fixed it myself. But I was slightly disappointed with the reaction from their customer service.
    - kuschku 10y ago
      Are you outside of Germany? Their support seems to be better here.
- masklinn 10y ago
  Logitech. Had a high end ("business" not gaming, same class as the MX Master or Performance MX in the current range) corded mouse circa 15 years ago, stopped working. Called them, they just sent me a new mouse no questions asked.
  - snarf 10y ago
    I had a wireless Logitech mouse that had a failing scroll wheel. It was probably somewhat out of warranty but I did not use it much during the time I owned it, so I tried calling Logitech. After initially stating that they would replace it, they simply stopped responding to my support ticket. That's the last Logitech product I've ever bought.
- tomca32 10y ago
  Dexcom. They sell glucose monitoring devices for diabetics. People on the support line are diabetic themselves and are using the same monitoring devices to manage their illness so they really know what they're talking about.
- edoceo 10y ago
  IBM. They call back when they say, same contact through the process. They have a model I've used as the basis at my current company. Customers love it. But having a Google product doesn't make you a Google customer. We're basically parts of a hot-dog for them.
- username223 10y ago
  > They don't? Who does then? IME Apple customer service is useless if you try to talk to them over the phone (though less hostile than Comcast), and good but not great if you go into a store. The best customer service comes from small companies selling premium outdoor stuff. For example, Darn Tough honors a lifetime warranty on their socks; OR tends to replace faulty products with no questions; and even REI will replace merchandise for a year. (REI used to do it forever, until assholes took advantage of their policy too often.)
- detaro 10y ago
  I can't say anything about having "the best", but Lenovo on-site support is good. Standard with some models and an affordable upgrade for others. After using it a few times I really don't want to go back to having to send a device in, so I'll need good reasons to consider a vendor that doesn't offer on-site. Especially since many faults don't make a device totally unusable. No shipping delays, no not having the device while they "wait for spare parts", no discussions about access to the OS for testing, ... If you don't have on-site with Lenovo and a service partner locally you apparently can bring/send it directly there and they'll claim the warranty with Lenovo, that might be a good deal as well if you know a trustworthy local shop.
- cbanek 10y ago
  My super impressed customer service story will date me, but it's a goodie. Back in '99, I bought a DEC Alpha. It was a great machine, although it had its quirks. I was having problems with the new chipset and compiling a linux kernel, and called support. I was about 16 at the time, and it's about 11 pm (CDT) on a Friday night. I was put through to an actual engineer who must have been working late, and he helped me through the process. It ends up that certain kernel versions only supported certain chipsets. Nowadays the company and the tech is mostly lost to the sands of time, and it seems good customer service went along with it.
hizanberg 10y ago
If there's a company with better Customer support than Apple I've yet to experience them. I've had a few issues with devices in the last decade and after a quick check, if it's not a software issue that can be fixed, I'm leaving with a replacement device, even when on holiday it was painless to go into the nearest Apple store and get it replaced. I rarely ever use the warranty on anything I buy as the process is usually not worth the effort but Apple Care is the only one I'd consider getting since I'll use it when I need, it's easy to find an Apple store and know they'll fix or replace anything with issues.
Grazester 10y ago
I am no Apple fanboy but Apple's service is the best I have come across. On a side note I had Google replaced my Nexus 4 because the side buttons became a bit difficult to press after 5 months. It was painless. They send a replacement, I sent them the old one. I was happy.

by tamcap 10y ago

WhitneyLand 10y ago

>Apple doesn't have the best customer service They don't? Who does then? Now if you want to say they're not perfect and they've had their problems, I would agree with that.

ghshephard 10y ago
If you have a desktop computer, and particularly if you have a Server, Dell was pretty phenomenal (though I presume the same model was followed by HP as well). They will come on site, and, if you have an expedited warranty, they will come on site same day, sometimes within a few hours. When I ran IT, it was great to put a call into them, run through a bit of online troubleshooting, and then have them dispatch (separately for some odd reason) Parts and Labor to resolve the issue. Apple experimented with on-site support for a while, but it never really went anywhere. I guess they want you to come into their stores. On the flip side, Apple Service is so good that now our IT organization just tells their employees if they have any issue, just go to the Apple Store and work with them directly. So, something to be said about that. And, it's getting to the point that almost all of the major cities I travel too have some kind of Apple Authorized repair - even if they don't have an Apple Store yet.
- massysett 10y ago
  > Dell was pretty phenomenal If you had enterprise-grade equipment. Their consumer support was absolutely horrible.
  - garrettgrimsley 10y ago
    I used to repair Dell consumer equipment at my job, and Dell Complete Care was hands down the best warranty out there.
  - kabdib 10y ago
    Dell Enterprise support is still highly variable, depending on the tech you land with. I've had to involve my sales contacts several times when techs wanted to do absolutely crazy things to hardware that was obviously dead. You can self-certify and manage your own component replacements, which works from small to mid scale. We do this for about 1,000 servers and it works pretty well; no phone calls where you roll the dice for quality of the tech, and I like frobbing hardware from time to time, it's a nice change from hacking C++ or PHP . . .
jwilcoxson 10y ago
I think Apple is pretty much the king of consumer level support.
- Hydraulix989 10y ago
  I've read some pretty horrifying stories about Apple (this person had a cracked screen, Apple bricked the phone while attempting to repair it, replaced it behind his back, then charged him 3x -- they also have a required replacement device "security deposit" you must pay up front in order to even get them to attempt a repair): https://www.aaron-gustafson.com/notebook/apple-support-honeybadger/ https://www.aaron-gustafson.com/notebook/apple-support-honey... There's a reason why third-party repair shops like Rossmann Group exist and make a killing doing component and board level repairs on iDevices.
- krzyk 10y ago
  I think that Amazon is best with their Kindle support. You break a Kindle and they send you a new one for free (if it is under the 1 year warranty) even internationally.
pingec 10y ago
From my experience, it's Logitech.
- kps 10y ago
  I'm still angry at Logitech for deliberate anti-support of my Spaceball 5000. The driver handles it fine, but has to be manually tricked into tolerating ‘obsolete’ models.
dbg31415 10y ago
Costco - Best return policy on the planet. But anything confidently, return anything no questions asked. Solid support line too. Fry's - Knowledgeable service for consumer goods and online price matching. Apple Stores are full of pretty idiots who love to make you wait. Dell - Enterprise hardware, and support is great. Apple phone support is painful, if turning it on and off again doesn't help you are out of luck unless you have Apple Care and can wait a week for a replacement. EDIT: Buffalo - Great call line. People on the other end know their stuff.
- dbg31415 10y ago
  I really hate Apple Stores... wanted to go on a bit of a longer rant here... I hate the physical stores, I hate the App Store. 1) Lost my power cord while traveling, so I thought I'd jump into the Apple Store and pick up a new one. Should be an in and out thing... took 1.5 hours of me just waiting around the store for them to sell me a power cord. This was in Sydney. Once I actually got to talk to someone, it still took 20 minutes. So painful. "Genius" is Apple for happy little idiot. 2) Tried to buy 8 laptops for a dev team. Bought them all online, went to pick them up... credit card cleared, no errors or messages on the website. Get to the store, "We're sorry, Sir. We can't give you more than 3 laptops per day." Uh? So you want me to come back once a day for 2 more days to pick up these laptops? "Yes Sir, that's our policy." It took a call to some regional corporate sales clown to get them to hand me 8 laptops the same day I paid for them. 3) Every try and roll out software to a team using the App Store as a source for any of that software? Is it the company Apple Account? Is it their Apple Account? Which account has the stupid software licenses bound to it, and how do I set it so I can use the company Apple Account to install the software, but not leave my master password for the company saved on their computer... I don't want to have to give them that password just so they can keep their system up-to-date... rather they just log in and expense software... nope, it's a cluster trying to keep it all updated once you have more than one account providing software. Apple does not care in the slightest about corporate users. I should have some sort of provisioning interface that lets me grant rights to use software licenses I own to their personal accounts... that's probably not pretty enough for Apple though.
  - 10y ago
kbutler 10y ago
When I had a motherboard issue with a dell laptop, Dell sent a representative to my home office to take it apart, clean it, and replace the motherboard. I've also had laptops and monitors replaced by other companies on a "we'll send you a replacement, you send the defective one back in that box with this prepaid shipping label, and thanks for buying our products" basis. I haven't heard of that from Apple.
- mrbill 10y ago
  They USED to do something similar. When the G5 iMacs had problems with bad capacitors on the motherboards, Apple would send you the replacement midplane with swap instructions, along with a box to return the old one in. I took pictures of the process: https://www.flickr.com/photos/mrbill/albums/1340761 https://www.flickr.com/photos/mrbill/albums/1340761 They eventually switched to "take it to the local Apple store or mail it in".
georgyo 10y ago
Without a doubt Dell has much better customer focus for technical people. The 4 year support contact w/ accidentally costs the same as 4 years of apple care, but Dell's covers everything except lost and wore down batteries. Apple requires that you book an appointment at one of their stores, go there, wait on line anyway because there are people who don't want to book online, have someone who can't fix hardware problems look at it, and then say they'll take it but you must give them your file vault password first. Dell on the other hand after ten minutes of hardware troubleshooting on the phone comes on site with replacement parts. If they can't fix it they send it back for you, and you can request that they give you the hard drive in the machine before they send it. It's very excellent.
- X86BSD 10y ago
  Apples main audience is not technical people. There is your first mistake. So comparing apples support for non technical people to dells technical oriented people support is flawed.
  - akiselev 10y ago
    Dell makes it easy to tell the phone/chat support person that you know what you're doing but it doesn't matter how technical you are. A Dell contracted tech will come to your house and replace the parts right in front of you within a few business days. A non technical person just has to spend more time going through the troubleshooting checklist.
  - paulddraper 10y ago
    Dell's main audience is also non-technical people.
- fastball 10y ago
  AppleCare does cover worn out batteries though... I also feel like you are comparing Dell's enterprise support to Apple's general customer support...
  - akiselev 10y ago
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
thenomad 10y ago
Herman Millar. "My chair's seat fabric has torn a bit. Is there anything you can do?" "When did you buy it?" "Erm, around 6 years ago, I think." Checks records "No problem, an entire replacement seat will turn up in a truck tomorrow. We'll fit it and leave your chair good as new. Have a nice day, sir."
- bshimmin 10y ago
  Yeah, this. I bought a Herman Miller chair from a company that ceased to exist not long afterwards and, several years later, Herman Miller still cheerfully sent me a replacement armrest when I phoned up to say I'd managed to damage it whilst moving office. I was deeply impressed. I understand that Barbour, the wax jacket company, are fairly incredible when it comes to customer service too. (Nothing has ever gone wrong with my jacket so I've yet to put this to the test.)
- morganvachon 10y ago
  Indeed. I have a backpack made by Tumi, it was my brother's bag from around 2001 or so. When he passed away in 2005 I inherited it, and a few years ago I finally noticed it had a little RFID tag and barcoded serial number embedded in it. I went on their website and looked it up, he had never registered it. So I registered it and found that it has a lifetime warranty, even though they stopped making that model years ago, and if it ever has a defect they will fix it or replace it with an equivalent bag. That's some damn fine customer service right there, and it's a shame Google's support is falling on its face when compared to furniture and backpack companies. This article is one more piece of news that makes me glad I excised Google from my life almost completely (I haven't found an alternative to my Nvidia Shield TV yet, but I'm looking).
  - Hydraulix989 10y ago
    Well, with furniture and backpack companies, the tolerance (or "forgiveness") for user error is a lot higher. If you accidentally drop your backpack, it doesn't have a screen or anything that shatters and requires a $150 part replacement. You can't even drop furniture in day-to-day use, really. Moreover, your backpack doesn't have a battery or anything that slowly but surely degrades over time anyways with a meager five-year lifespan. I can't imagine too many ways that a backpack or piece of furniture can become accidentally damaged by "user error." Remember, so many people try to misrepresent their own mistakes (perhaps because they didn't understand what happened or they didn't realize it was their own fault) as product defects that the phone manufacturers all had to add things like internal liquid sensors to their devices. On another note, many of my non-technical friends conflate Android OS software problems with device defects (e.g. "my phone died" actually meant that they had 300 running processes because they never learned how to close running apps on Android -- which to be fair is a PRETTY buried feature that doesn't lend itself well to user discovery; the number of people I see that don't realize they have to manually close apps on their Android phone is shocking). It's probably the reason there are so many ways to buy "refurbished" devices. Needless to say, if Apple or Google started honoring a lifetime warranty, they'd lose a lot of money pretty quickly.
jasonlotito 10y ago
In the last 5 years, I've had better customer service from Dell then Apple. In fact, in one day, I deal with both Apple and Microsoft customer service, and Microsoft won, hands down. I'm not going to pretend that Apple's customer service is horrible, but I can safely say that they aren't special anymore. Maybe I've just been incredibly unlucky, but simply put, their customer service is lackluster at best. Edit: Just to be clear, this is all consumer level support.
- Kipters 10y ago
  Same as my experience. I've had four awesome experiences with Microsoft support. 1. Microsoft Band, a month after its warranty expired (bought in the USA), they still replaced it for free because of plastics wear, a common issue for that version 2. GF's Surface RT: faulty touch screen 1 year and half after she bought it, replaced for free, no questions asked, they even sent the replacement before I shipped the faulty one 3. GF's Lumia 925: she thought the pictures taken by the back camera were yellow-ish, she got it replaced with another brand new 925 for free. Six months later we bricked it trying to install a Windows 10 Insider Preview, replaced for free with a Lumia 830 4. My Lumia 1520, sent it in for repair because the battery was wearing out (it lasted a little more than a day instead of 1 and half/two), got a Lumia 950 XL instead A friend of mine also got his Surface Pro 3 replaced for free.
  - j3FF3ry 10y ago
    Did they ask to hold the full retail value of the device for the advanced replacement? Because when I was having issues with my surface book they asked me to send it in. At that time I couldn't be without the device and I asked for an advance replacement. At that point they wanted to hold the full retail amount until they received the new one. I went ahead and did it but I struggled since it was not a small purchase price. I received the replacement and sent the defective unit back. Expecting the hold to be released with in 2-3 business days after they received the defect unit. Nope. They ended up holding the money for 15 business days. I don't know if I'll ever buy something Microsoft again.
    - 10y ago
stickydink 10y ago
Sennheiser. I had a pair of reasonably expensive (~$250) headphones and the left ear went a week after my 2 year warranty expired. I knew it was basically just the cable (which was detachable), since it worked with a spare. But the official cable has an angled, custom fit and so it sits flush. I filled in an online form, printed the pre-paid label, dropped it off at UPS. Within a week, no questions asked, a brand new pair showed up in the retail box (with another box, set of batteries, extension cables). I've always found returns to manufacturers a huge pain in the ass, this was the first that wasn't.
- harigov 10y ago
  I had an entirely different experience. I had a similarly priced Sennheiser headset and they were great. I had the exact same issue as well with headset's left speaker stopped working couple of weeks after my warranty expired. I called them up and they said they cannot do anything and I will have to a buy a new one. In the end, it turns out that a connection got loose so I fixed it myself. But I was slightly disappointed with the reaction from their customer service.
  - kuschku 10y ago
    Are you outside of Germany? Their support seems to be better here.
masklinn 10y ago
Logitech. Had a high end ("business" not gaming, same class as the MX Master or Performance MX in the current range) corded mouse circa 15 years ago, stopped working. Called them, they just sent me a new mouse no questions asked.
- snarf 10y ago
  I had a wireless Logitech mouse that had a failing scroll wheel. It was probably somewhat out of warranty but I did not use it much during the time I owned it, so I tried calling Logitech. After initially stating that they would replace it, they simply stopped responding to my support ticket. That's the last Logitech product I've ever bought.
tomca32 10y ago
Dexcom. They sell glucose monitoring devices for diabetics. People on the support line are diabetic themselves and are using the same monitoring devices to manage their illness so they really know what they're talking about.
edoceo 10y ago
IBM. They call back when they say, same contact through the process. They have a model I've used as the basis at my current company. Customers love it. But having a Google product doesn't make you a Google customer. We're basically parts of a hot-dog for them.
username223 10y ago
> They don't? Who does then? IME Apple customer service is useless if you try to talk to them over the phone (though less hostile than Comcast), and good but not great if you go into a store. The best customer service comes from small companies selling premium outdoor stuff. For example, Darn Tough honors a lifetime warranty on their socks; OR tends to replace faulty products with no questions; and even REI will replace merchandise for a year. (REI used to do it forever, until assholes took advantage of their policy too often.)
detaro 10y ago
I can't say anything about having "the best", but Lenovo on-site support is good. Standard with some models and an affordable upgrade for others. After using it a few times I really don't want to go back to having to send a device in, so I'll need good reasons to consider a vendor that doesn't offer on-site. Especially since many faults don't make a device totally unusable. No shipping delays, no not having the device while they "wait for spare parts", no discussions about access to the OS for testing, ... If you don't have on-site with Lenovo and a service partner locally you apparently can bring/send it directly there and they'll claim the warranty with Lenovo, that might be a good deal as well if you know a trustworthy local shop.
cbanek 10y ago
My super impressed customer service story will date me, but it's a goodie. Back in '99, I bought a DEC Alpha. It was a great machine, although it had its quirks. I was having problems with the new chipset and compiling a linux kernel, and called support. I was about 16 at the time, and it's about 11 pm (CDT) on a Friday night. I was put through to an actual engineer who must have been working late, and he helped me through the process. It ends up that certain kernel versions only supported certain chipsets. Nowadays the company and the tech is mostly lost to the sands of time, and it seems good customer service went along with it.

hizanberg 10y ago

If there's a company with better Customer support than Apple I've yet to experience them. I've had a few issues with devices in the last decade and after a quick check, if it's not a software issue that can be fixed, I'm leaving with a replacement device, even when on holiday it was painless to go into the nearest Apple store and get it replaced. I rarely ever use the warranty on anything I buy as the process is usually not worth the effort but Apple Care is the only one I'd consider getting since I'll use it when I need, it's easy to find an Apple store and know they'll fix or replace anything with issues.

Grazester 10y ago

I am no Apple fanboy but Apple's service is the best I have come across. On a side note I had Google replaced my Nexus 4 because the side buttons became a bit difficult to press after 5 months. It was painless. They send a replacement, I sent them the old one. I was happy.